Search Engine Companies and Privacy

At least once a day, everyone that goes onto the internet uses a search engine. Search engines are the way we can find information on the internet. This can be for specific websites, looking for images, books, videos, articles that scholars wrote, shopping, and many other things. Search engines are probably the most useful tool on the internet.

Companies
There are a lot of companies that provide search engines. There is Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, even Facebook, and those are only a few of the many out there. These search engine companies are Big industry and are used throughout the world. There are many others that are specifically for use in certain countries or for certain languages. There are many companies, such as Google, who have multiple languages on them.

Searching and Privacy
Searching seems very simple when on a search engine. You just type and click enter to move on to whatever you are searching and a bunch of websites from the internet pop up. Do you ever wonder how or why certain topics come at the top of your search while other people with the same search get different top results? This does not always happen but a lot of companies add in filter bubbles. Filter bubbles are not necessarily bad. They might sound like something you do not want on your computer but they can make searching a lot nicer. The biggest issue is that, filter bubbles work by an algorithm that each search company sets up. This can track your history, prior searches, even your location. Basically these companies are getting peices of information about you, including some metadata, which is the information about your location.

Is This Good or Bad?
Filter bubbles can be both good and bad. They are good because these companies are going into your computers and finding all this information about you to get you search results that are more aimed at your interests. Now that might have sounded nice that this is helping you get search results more to your liking but the biggest issue with this is that they are invading your privacy. Do you want Google knowing your search history, your location, or any information about you? This can be very bad but you can also go into your settings and find ways to turn all that stuff off to stop filter bubbles from popping up.