The New York Times is promoting what they call "search neutrality". They say:
"The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include 'search neutrality': the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance."
They do not say anything about applying similar principals to newspapers or their web sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28raff.html?_r=2
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> the principle that search engines should have no editorial
> policies other than that their results be comprehensive,
> impartial and based solely on relevance.
It's tough to even define what relevance exactly means in the first place.
In many ways Google's algorithms are mirroring the bias of people who post links. If 90% of people believe that XYZ is true then they probably push Pro-XYZ-dot-com to Google's top spot through their links. If so, then if Google were neutral – which is probably impossible to be in the first place, but perhaps indeed not a bad goal to strive for – then Google's results still would be biased. Well, I guess Google still did some interesting efforts around "mixing" the types of sites returned in the top 10, so that minority views (like an anti site, if the majority is pro) get a chance to be seen and researched... |
