Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Google's Rainbow-colored Results for "Gay"  (View post)

Jon [PersonRank 0]

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
16 years ago10,669 views

Cool.
It does not work when using an experiment for search. Gay pride also works but it doesnt work for anything else I can find.

Wierd [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

it does it for http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=queer too...

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Now Adwords will target me with gay ads.
yeah.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]weird,

no it doesn't...

[put at-character here]TOMHTML

they will???

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I can reproduce it with "queer" when I append the US location parameter "&gl=us":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=queer&btnG=Google+Search&gl=us

Stephen Shankland [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

The view shows gradually fewer color bars as you make the window size smaller.

Ben [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

If any other one other than Google did this while displaying Google ads, wouldn't it be breaking the rules. Google's AdSense rules say users "May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks".

mrbene [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here] Tom and James

AFAIK, Google isn't doing cross-session targeted advertisement. They do have the technology in place to do easily do intra-session targeting (they drop a cookie with a hash of your search term, so that this will be passed up to the server on your following search) so that ads on your search following 'gay' have the potential of including the understanding you are refining the 'gay' search.

If you are logged in and searching, and have not disabled web history (last I checked it is enabled by default for every Google account, even without having installed the toolbar), your entire search history is available, and theoretically could be used to target ads. I'm not aware of any public statement that this is actually happening.

Andy Wong [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Is it a kind of special respect, or discrimination against gays and straights?

Chuck [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I'm not against gays or gay marriage. But I am against a company that has a political agenda when they are supposed to provide information, not views. Pushing gay rights, or anything else, hurts the principle of non-intervention. Especially doing it on a subject matter that is highly controversial.

Gay [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

How could elimination of social divisions be controversial?

Connecting people means harmonizing the society. Atomizing society by forcing people living in separation that is the real problem, not the opposite.

Google might want to adapt the Nokia's "connecting people" – which is in the way the thing the Internet does.

tgroy the homophobichomo [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

[insult removed]...google supourts most caues you just have to ask to be reconized and they will ad you to there calaendar ......[insult removed]

Chris Ing [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

lesbian works also

Justin Pfister [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Well, I suppose a little kid will hear the word 'gay' and proceed to look it up in Google. They will then see the 'rainbow' stripe. So. if any of you guys hear little kids talking about the rainbow they saw on google OR if anyone's blogging about it.. you know what they were searching for.

I believe this is the ground work for strategic out-reach. The way it works is that you create a special experience for a particular query. You can then watch out for people talking about the special experience instead of the query. You can deduce, since they are talking about it, they have made or are around people who have made that query.

For example.. 'Michelle L' brought this 'rainbow-on-google' to our attention..It is possible that by finding this 'rainbow', she's unknowingly telling users that she looking up the word 'gay'. What does this tell us about her? (Not much in this particular case). Is she gay? Are her friends gay? The term is to general at this point.

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I believe Chuck here makes an extremely important point, I believe as well that Google should not do these kind of things, not only because google shouldn't have a political agenda, but as well because this seems to be done by a relatively small group of people, who where able to change this without anyone higher up knowing about this... in the same way most easter eggs are created...

PS. I won't deny that I don't believe that "gays" really exsist (and I am not going to again state on this site as well why I believe this, nor do I hope to start a comment war here, its just to explain my reaction above a bit better), although that doesn't stop me from being able to be normal friends with gays.

Ticked [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Gay
It's called being hypocritical. Gays ask for harmony and the end of social division, yet adding a prominent rainbow clearly highlights that division. Neutral is neutral, and Google's stunt here certainly is not.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Here's the source image, by the way:

http://www.google.com/images/pride.gif

[Edit: this is blown up in interesting ways due to this forum software, but click on it to see the original...]

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

In addition to those mentioned already here, it also shows up for [bisexual], [transgender], [homosexual], and [gay pride] as well.

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> Rainbow colors are a globally recognized gay symbol and there’s Pride Week coming up.

It could also have to do with this:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZmLBrL36NObNyMR0ghXN7vB5hYwD91BG28O0

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California has become the second state to allow same-sex marriages.

A landmark California Supreme Court ruling overturning bans on gay marriage went into effect at 5 p.m. Monday and clerks in at least five counties began handing out gender-neutral marriage licenses."

mrbene [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I have to laugh at the rampant political correctness. In my world, PC is what's under my desk, has fans, a power supply...

I am not you. Will there be some friction if this incongruity is recognized? Absolutely. What if it isn't? Well, then both of us lose a bit of what makes us individuals.

I am also concerned when I see comments that take for granted Google is trying to be neutral. If anything, Google is based on the concept that everything is _not_ equal. This is the goal of a search engine – to identify what is better and what is worse.

Google as an apolitical entity? Hardly. Any large company spends a non-insignificant portion of budget influencing policy makers – a recently opened Berlin office exists for the primary purpose of affecting policy in the EU (http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-27-n37.html). They have taken specific stands on technology issues like Net Neutrality (http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html).

Google also explicitly "Celebrates Diversity" (http://www.google.com/corporate/diversity/index.html), and I could see an argument that celebrating homosexuality makes business sense (remember, I'm the one who believes that Google's 3 word motto is "publicly traded company"), since homosexual couples are less likely to have children and therefore family responsibilities than heterosexual couples. IE, on average less unexpected absenteeism and the ability to work overtime more often.

neoleo [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

google seems to me always gay-friendly. but i dont think they got a "political agenda" to propose.

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

It's very sad that company like Google has this kind of agenda. Why we don't see these tricks related to religious views of search engine users etc.
The only reason I see this worth of blogging is technical means to view this image or bar mentioned.
Google doesn't get my empathy.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I don't think its bad for google to have an agenda. No agenda means no openess, no democracy, no morals on pop-ups etc. Promoting gay rights is a great Idea to get peoples minds to _OPEN_ up to new thinking, no?

mavrev.com Matt [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I don't see why this is a big deal whether Google does this or not. They're not your standard company, they're known to be rather eccentric in what they do. If they want to support something I think they should.

Hanan Cohen [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

When Google do things, the do it GLOBAL

See this picture taken at pride day in Israel

http://picasaweb.google.com/dudy.bartal/TelAvivGayParade2008/photo#5213534785212191298

Taken by a Gaygler.

drtimofey [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

I wonder what's Sergey Brin's view on gay pride. Majority, if not all people born in Soviet Union hold strong feelings against homosexuality.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wV4_WEs-nMw

Jen [PersonRank 1]

15 years ago #

the rainbow shows for lesbian, gay, and bisexual, but not for transexual. What about the "T" in LGBT?

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

Hmm...don't see it anymore...weird

rose [PersonRank 0]

15 years ago #

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth" Genesis 9:13

This is what the RAINBOW is orginally for. Not for gay people.

drtimofey [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

[put at-character here]rose
I know, them guys took our rainbow:(

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!