Greens warn against sides effects of search engines
March 23, 2005
The parliamentary group of the Greens in the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany's federal parliament, is especially worried about the "googleising" of society and current trends in the area of search engines. Hence with a 23-page booklet, which has been published on the Web site of the parliamentary group, the MPs want to re-enliven the debate about the market dominance of the net portals, the somewhat obscure ranking of search engines and the at times opaque ways in which user data are used. In the preface to the booklet Grietje Bettin, the media-policy spokesperson of the Greens, and her colleague responsible for presenting the position of the party on domestic issues, Silke Stokar, remind the search engine operators of the "great responsibility" they bear. They "impose hierarchies on search results and hence guide the attention of users on the Internet," the spokespersons declare. It was thus a matter of some importance that users be informed about the selective functions of search engines.
In the booklet itself, which bears the title "Search Engines: The Gate to the Net", its author Harald Neymanns turns his attention first to the search behavior of users and the characteristics of Internet search engines. He points out that search engines do not constitute neutral authorities that supply the best results in a "mathematically reliable fashion." It was thus disturbing that a mere 40 percent of users tended to consult a second supplier of search services. The strength of the Internet so far that unlike the case of traditional mass media there were no score of major media groups acting as "gatekeepers" setting the agenda was now in danger of being undermined by the current dominance exerted on the search engine market by Google, Mr. Neymanns noted. Those deciding the topics these days, however, were not only editors "but programmers and their algorithms."
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In the booklet itself, which bears the title "Search Engines: The Gate to the Net", its author Harald Neymanns turns his attention first to the search behavior of users and the characteristics of Internet search engines. He points out that search engines do not constitute neutral authorities that supply the best results in a "mathematically reliable fashion." It was thus disturbing that a mere 40 percent of users tended to consult a second supplier of search services. The strength of the Internet so far that unlike the case of traditional mass media there were no score of major media groups acting as "gatekeepers" setting the agenda was now in danger of being undermined by the current dominance exerted on the search engine market by Google, Mr. Neymanns noted. Those deciding the topics these days, however, were not only editors "but programmers and their algorithms."
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