Google search experiment
Conducted by Katie McMillan
"Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
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MY EXPERIMENT
I conducted an experiment to see how google search worked without all my previous years of googling fogging my results. First I started by creating a fake account. I typed in the search bar and it would correct spelling but Google wasn't able to predict what I was going to write. This was odd because for years i've been use to having google finish my sentences. I decided to only search Justin trudeau. I clicked on images of him and many links. I went on to youtube using this fake account and typed in Justin Trudeau and clicked on videos. After doing that for a couple days I decided to type in every letter of the alphabet into the search engine and see what Google would predict. My hypothesis was that google would predict subjects based on Justin Trudeau. These are my results: a-alexander trudeu b-barak Obama c-canada d-donald trump news e-elizabeth may (Canadian house of commons) f-facebook g-google news h-harper I-ivanka trump j-justine trudeu of course k-kathlene wynn was second down, the first was ikea l-lcbo m-margret trudeou n-news o-ottawa weather p-pierre trudeau q-queen elizabeth r-rob ford s-stephen harper t-trudeau u-usd card v-via rail w-Weather Ottawa x-xbox 1 y-youtube z-zara As you can see most searchers have something to do with Justin Trudeau, Ottawa, Canada or Politics of some sort. After seeing these results I really wanted to see what would happen if I did the same on my own account. These were my findings: a-azian cuisine b-bigley shoes website c-call vietnam 999 soup d-dimensions of a wine label e-Ecco the dolphin f-female journalist best novels to learn about haiti g-google news h-how do you screenshot on a mac i-internet speed test j-Japanese soup recipe k-kindergarten 2016 l-let love and friendship reign m-mcmillan n-news o-oshawa to union go train schedule p-privacy and social media q-queen elizabeth r-rogers s-sean penn and christopher walken movie t-the deer hunter u-uoit.mycampus v-vietnam pho soup restaurants w-what is the weather today x-xavier from new xmen movie y-youtuve z-zone of regulation As you can see, when I used my own account, google predicted searches I had searched in the past. This can be convenient but do I really want google remembering my every search, especially when using google on computers that are shared with the public, co-workers or family. |
INFORMATION THAT GOOGLE COLLECTS FROM YOU
Google tracks and collects the things you do such as your searches, website visits, videos you've watched, your interests in adds, where you are, the information of the device you're using and Ip address and cookies Google collects all of you personal information such as name, email addresses, passwords, birthday, your sex, phone numbers and the country you live in. Google also collects the things that you create such as your sent and received emails, your contacts, calendar, all of your photos/videos and anything you work on Google Drive.(Google Privacy, n.d) |
Google is able to autocorrect mistakes that you type into the search box by mistakes that people in the past have made all over the world. Google also remembers what you have typed before so if you write, How far.. Google will automatically remember a month ago when you typed in "How far is the sun from the earth" and it will complete the question for you in the search box. (Google Privacy, n.d) You can visit https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html to get more information on google and your privacy! |