We all want solutions tailored to our needs for a lot of things, online and offline, but does that include a search engine that shows results for queries based on dozens of factors (and more importantly, hides from you certain results based on those factors)?
Well, I’m inclined to think that’s not such a bad thing at all, or at least not that big a deal.
DuckDuckGo, a tiny alternative search engine, begs to differ, and this morning they spread the word about a new website they’ve set up to give home to an illustrated guide of the ‘search engine filter bubble‘ concept and why they think it ducks sucks.
Go visit DontBubble.us and please make up your own mind.
For the record, MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser came up with the term ‘filter bubble’ (see his TED talk), and has even authored a book about it.
Also, you can add &pws=0 to any string on Google and it will turn off personalized search results (though there is some debate about if it actually does what it’s supposed to).
(Via Hacker News, where there’s an interesting discussion about the ‘filter bubble’ being complete nonsense or of the utmost importance to mankind)
http://twitter.com/#!/duckduckgo/status/82786056432402432