searches

A software engineer has sparked a controversial debate with the claim that "Google Search is dying." Dmitri Brereton says he is talking about the quality and relevance of results rather than the number of people using the tool or the revenue it ... generates for Google. Brereton's claims were sparked by a post showing the number of Google searches for the discussion site Reddit are steadily increasing. He believes this isn't because the site itself is becoming more popular but rather because people are using Google but restricting the results to posts from Reddit to get more useful ... (view more)

The Chrome browser is getting a couple of new features that some may find useful. Sharing links and finding previous pages could both get easier. The first feature is already available in Chrome 90, the latest version of the browser for the general ... public. It works on computers, though won't appear on the iOS and Android apps till later. The feature simply lets users create a link that points to a specific location on a page, rather than just containing the URL. The idea is to make is easier to share a link to something specific in a lengthy page. This isn't the same as internal text links ( ... (view more)

A court says US customs officials can't examine the contents of phones and laptops at the border without reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. It said current policies violate the Fourth Amendment. The amendment prevents "unreasonable searches ... and seizures" and requires warrants based on probable cause. It's been at the centre of numerous technology-related cases as courts decide what constitutes property and searches when it comes to digital devices and information. The latest case, first brought in 2017, covers the policies of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency and the ... (view more)

Google has removed more than a million web pages from its search index under European privacy guidelines. It's published detailed statistics on its handling of the "right to be forgotten." The "right" is actually a set of legal guidelines ... established by the European Court of Justice and covering searches made within Europe. The idea is to balance the right to privacy with the right to freedom of expression. It was sparked by a case where a man complained that searches for his name brought up a 1998 newspaper article about his house being foreclosed over a debt. Although the article was untrue ... (view more)

An independent study found 91 percent of Google searches for physical products brought up a Google product as the top ad result. Google says it plays fair and the practice doesn't mean other companies have to spend more on advertising. The Wall ... Street Journal study wasn't about the search results themselves, but rather the ads that appear on the results page. It took 25 tech hardware products from carbon monoxide detectors to WiFi routers and carried out 1,000 searches for each on a computer, having first blocked its past search history to avoid distortion. On all but two of the ... (view more)

A search engine designed specifically for children has caused controversy, thanks to its filters. Critics say the creators are wrong in their choice of "bad words" to block. The site, named "Kiddle," takes several steps to make itself suitable for ... children. For example, it deletes its entire logs of user searches once every 24 hours and doesn't store any personal details. Of course, this also means it can't refine results like Google does. For example, the search engine won't automatically learn if a user searching for "football results" wants to know ... (view more)