Search and Filter Bubbles

Home Page

Overview: 

A Search or Filter Bubble[1] is when the search engine web site you are using has algorithms running in the back ground and which take a look at your past searches, your location, and your internet habits. To form a personal search related to your interests and likings. Eli Pariser    coined the phrase or term Search or Filter Bubbles. [2]

Searching at the Beginning


Search was first started to scan over website to find what websites meet your search key words. You were able to use + or – signs to help with your search options. So if you were doing research on the Vikings of the 1600s you could put this in your web search bar “ Vikings – Minnesota ” so you would be able to eliminate all of the Minnesota Vikings football team related websites. Then y ou  were able to search for images and then able to use the images to search for websites. Then came the invention of the Search or Filter Bubbl e.   It has taken 20 years for this to happen, a restively short in the history of the world but in the world of technology it has taken an eternity to come around. <span style="line-height:16.5pt;font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<p style="margin:12pt0in;line-height:16.5pt;">

Social Network Search
Since the rise in social network popularity there has been an increaase in the searching for information using these social networks. The use of social networks instead of site such as google, is it is a new form of searching for what you want. Instead of finding the source by itself we can use places such as facebook to search for news going on at the moment or weather. And since you "like" things on facebook the results are tailored to what you like.

The Good and the Bad of Search or Filter Bubbles
The Good:

If you are doing research on a topic search and filter bubbles are good in most ways. They will help you find the articles that you are looking for. Filter Bubbles also help with choosing what categories to look into further rather than a search engine just giveing you results from a wide spectrum.

The Bad:



<p style="margin:12pt0in;line-height:16.5pt;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica">If you are trying to look at the other side of a topic that you want to know the whole story not just what you believe in.

<p style="margin:12pt0in;line-height:16.5pt;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica">Ex. Politics - If you are a <span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">Democrat <span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">  <span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">and have looked at what all the Democratic websites about a certain topic and then want to see what the

<p style="margin:12pt0in;line-height:16.5pt;"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica">Republicans are saying about it. All of those websites will not be there for you to read.



How to get around Search or Filter Bubble
There are many ways to get round filter bubbles now a days and some are very simple. So here are some examples to help you.[3]
 * 1) Delete your cookies: Deleting  the cookies on your computer may help very much.Cookies are what companies use to track you on the web
 * 2) Deleting your web history: Most of google's search personalization is powered by your history.
 * 3) Keep your Facebook data private: Facebook has a lot of your information public for companies and others to see. So to fix this go into your account settings and turn on all your privacy settings.
 * 4) Turn off targeted ads: There are many add-ons depending on your browser that you can install to help with this problem. These add-ons help block or remove these unwanted targeted ads.
 * 5) Search Privately: All browsers now have options to browse privately or a form of it. This can be of great help to you because they hide your cookies from the browser.
 * 6) Go anonymous: Sites like torproject will take you one step further and let you run all of your browser traffic through them which they will remove somethings even incognito does not.

Ways Social Networks use this to our advantage
A good benefit to social network based search is the results you are given are more accurate. The problem with search engines is that they have no way of ranking the results in order of relevance to the user's query.4This is where the social network uses your own preferences previously determined by your friends and your own likes. This helps them understand better what you like and are most likely searching for.

Companies that do not use Search or Filter Bubbles

 * DuckDuckGo
 * Tor

Compaines that are using Search or Filter Bubbles

 * Google
 * Facebook
 * Microsoft Bing
 * Yahoo
 * Twitter