"the more you share with Google, the more tailored your results will be"
August 12, 2007
That's the money line from an interview with Sep Kamvar, who leads Google's search personalization strategy, in RWW.
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Comments
Fine. Dandy. Individual tailoring increases as a function of giving your information to Google.
But the unanswered subtext is: Is the increasing function logarithmic, linear, or exponential? Because if it is logarithmic, that means I share more information with Google than I get benefit from. So while it remains technically true that tailoring continues to increase, while I keep sharing more information, Google is basically getting more out of the deal than I am.
And if the function is linear, if the amount of correct tailoring that I experience is directly proportional to the amount of information that I share, then at least Google and the individual have made a "fair trade". But another way of looking at that fair trade is "zero sum". I.e. I might has well have done all the tailoring myself, because what I am gaining in search efficiency I am giving up in privacy.
The only way I see this as useful is if the function is exponential, i.e. if I gain exponentially more search efficiency and tailoring out of linearly more of my private data sharing. Then, and only then, would it even make sense.
So telling me that tailoring increases as personal data sharing increases really tells me nothing. I need to know the shape of the function.
Thanks for the interview link John
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