While not a pure Linux question it is Linux adjacent.

Not just Google but all search engines seem to be overly selective about the websites they will list. If Google were to be believed it would seem that only Canada and the US have a decent selection of websites. While I have been to German, Russian and Asian websites it is almost never via Google... in all cases I can recall only direct links take me to non-US based sites.

In some cases I can even pop the name of one of my sites into a google search and come up empty and I know for a fact google bot has been crawling all over it plenty of times. For a supposedly international collaborative effort the Internet seems amazingly limited from this side of the pond. The most blatant example would be something like a porn search... while I am sure the European Union has embraced the chaste and puritanical lifestyle it is notorious for (especially the French... they never have sex)... I am sure a couple of rebellious perverts probably tried to set up porn sites in their respective countries.

For some reason I keep coming up with problems that I don't believe Google will answer satisfactorily. You don't need to satisfy my laziness directly. All I really need are a couple search terms that will guide me towards the solution or you can flame me for posting inappropriate questions or impose a scornful silence.

Sometimes I wish I knew how to shut up and cut my loses. Z/Z

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <GENERAL> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Google and many other search engines are pursuing a policy of "personalizing" search results based on what they know about you.

http://searchengineland.com/google-n...-results-31195

In many ways, it's like trying to anticipate our needs by protecting us from things we aren't interested in (but we could be interested in them--and that's our loss).

I don't think that filtering results by country of location falls quite in the same category, though. If my search engine gave me a list of websites in French, for example, all it would do is remind me of how little of my high school French I've retained.

Personally, I almost never use Google for searches. I use Startpage (ixquick in the UK).

I can read any language based on the 26 letter alphabet with some skill and I can read some Russian (and a smidge of Inuit). What I really want besides a search engine that doesn't decide what I should see is a search engine that tells me why it is blocking a site. Plenty of occasions I get a chilling effects or US law restriction message ( and I am not even browsing from the US? ). I am sure there is plenty of stuff I don't want to see but a brief description of why a site is blocked couldn't hurt.

One of my pet peeves are sites like Hulu and Youtube blocking content when it is trying to be accessed from Canada. I am a very disloyal and unpatriotic Canadian and I certainly don't judge people based on nationality on the net but honestly if I walk five feet from a certain location into Canada I can no longer view certain Youtube content? I know I can circumvent this with a proxy or vpn but I seriously hate the idea of the Internet having borders. Z/Z

Use duckduckgo. Also read:
http://dontbubble.us/

They think that they are being 'helpful' in filtering out non-local (and I think that it is locality, rather than language, but maybe, eg, Canadians or Indians can comment on whether they see all the local-but-not-their-language web sites) sites.

Sometimes they are right; when i'm looking for computer components, it is probably better/easier for me to buy them from outlets that at least are in my timezone and understand my currency and local taxes. Sometimes, they are wrong; if I am looking for a tutorial, I care whether it is in a language I understand, and not so much about the nationality of the author or the hosting.

All in all, this just seems like a 'dumbing down' to satisfy the desires of the majority to get at useful links as easily as possible, and a reason to use a different search engine whenever things get difficult. And if they'd only give a checkbox for 'prefer results from your locality (or not)' it would be so much easier, and, provided that it defaulted to your locality, it wouldn't interfere with their mission not to complicate things for the average user. Ho, hum.

How do you know what they think ?

What if they just want to censor everything and keep you in your box ? I don't think people realize how completely isolated Amerika is. This is just a part of that isolation, and it is very important.

It has been said many times before, that, the more information is made available to you, the more isolated you become.

It's hard to "shake off" the television mentality. I know this in part because I haven't had a television in my house in more than twenty years, and I don't miss it. The only way that I can stand to use the Internet is by aggressive use of ad-block software, but it still feels like an uphill battle, and so I find myself using the Internet less and less. The day might come soon when I don't miss it, either.

People seem to be utterly and completely naive with regard to the Internet ... spilling their guts in tweets and posts and whatnot, sending the most private and confidential stuff "on postcards" with nary a second thought. But, as they also say, you can't change human behavior until it hits them in the gut. Repeatedly.

Meanwhile, "to thine own self be true." You don't have to "tweet," and your real friends aren't on Facebook, and just because "everybody else is doing it" doesn't mean that you have to do it, too. Curl up by the fire with a good book (the paper kind), a roaring fire, and just a snip of really good Scotch. Electronic networks will suddenly seem very far away.

Certainly one of the most recent disturbing trends by Google (and there are many...), even more disturbing than their new "you have no privacy" policy, is that their search pages no longer provide a direct link to any search term. They no longer provide the actual URL. Everything now "bounces" through a random string key on one of their servers. So, not only do they know exactly what you're searching for and finding, but you can't find it yourself. This is why I now vote with my feet. My encrypted e-mails are no longer visible to their marketing-bots. I don't tweet, I don't post on anyone's "wall," I'm not linked in.

Duckduckgo is impressive... it found my obscurely named website right away unlike google and showed a link to a service that analyses website traffic. That service "W3Spy" must be faulty because there is no way my site gets over 70 unique visitors per day. The project is stalled and I don't even have the game server running yet and I have never advertised the site in any way. Must be some really bored people out there who like visiting very boring sites? Z/Z

Edit: I agree sundial... I gave my tv the heave-ho a long time ago... it's not so much they put ads up but that they put up dishonest ads up... I don't mind paying for a tv program with a little of my attention but I don't like being manipulated and lied to. I like that you are taking steps to filter out content you don't agree with as well. Z/Z

Indeed, and it seems this policy also applies to other sites like youtube (it has a link to it).

I refuse to use these services, and anyone who values their privacy shouldn't either.

I hear people talking about their facebook and twitter etc all the time. I have never used these and will never use them.

You know, I can understand anything and everything, except for one thing: How are people SO stupid. I cannot understand it. It will take me a very long time to understand this, and I may die before finding out.

It's more about conditioning rather than stupidity imho.

Take for example the term "purchasing power" or "buying power", that makes no sense in reality, but we as people are conditioned to believe in it. Personally I don't think I have power when buying things, rather I tend to think I have power when I decide to not buy something.

It is the same about security, we are conditioned to believe that the less freedom we have, the more safe we are

Mostly that is correct. Buying power is ill-named. There is power to be had in buying and not buying as well. By purchasing items or services you believe to be in the best interest of all ( lets say a candy bar that you know for certain will help in research for the cure for a disease as opposed to a candy bar that will only support some rich dude's yearly trip to Thailand to molest children ). By not buying you can dictate what you consider to be an acceptable product or service.

For the most part a dollar bill is way more powerful than a ballot. A fact that the rich abuse and the poor don't realize. The rich have far less capitol than the poor... the only difference is the rich know how to abuse their money. Z/Z

You are right, but then why didn't conditioning work on me ? or a few other people ?

Most people are just tape recorders, all they can do is record and play back. I cannot interact with them in a meaningful way. I'm not sure if they means they are stupid, but it does mean they are very limited.

The 'poor' dont really have that much in the way of choices, do they? Or that much money to influence when they do buy stuff.

I actually sit between Cedrik and LinuxNoobX as far as 'purchasing power beign able to influence business decisions' goes.

Mostly, its bunk. It can be true, if you are careful, are getting farily simple items, and really know what you are doing. E.g. buying from a local farmer/producer who you know to have good labour relations, doesnt poluate, and pays attention to what the customer wants. When you buy complex items, e.g. computers, cars, housing, there is so much information, and so many parts, that its very hard to know what you are getting.

For example- if you buy car XXXXX the marketing gloss says 'the factory has zero carbon emmisions!'....which is also bunk. But lets just pretend its not. Car company AAAAA has a 'normal' factory. So, you it seems like XXXXX is more enviromentall friendly, right? Not when you consider that XXXXX buys its windwos glass, sheet metal, rubbers, etc etc. from the cheapest places they can find, and they dump huge amounts of toxins. Where AAAAA gets their parts from far less enviromentally damaging sources.

That is just one issue, it becomes far more complex if you want to consider more variables.

That may be a mantra (subtly) recited by a lot of western govenments (in particular the english speaking nations) but that is very new. I'd bet that if you tried that sort of thing on in the 1800s-1930s, there would be a lot more debate and disagreement.

IMO the reason why that particular viewpoint is even around is due to the current geoploticial climate, and probably more importantly, the immense and centralised power of the media.

Its a lot cheaper to run a fox style 'news' network with talking heads saying what the CEO/chairman agrees with than it is to run a real news network with proper journalism. Its a complex world, that really doesnt work well with 'news' channels that try to get 10 second or less soundbites to describe every situation.

I dont believe that is true, isolation is not information dependant. But it can seem that way, depending on your analysis.

I couldnt agree more about 'televison metality'. I lived for years without a TV, then moved to a country with sod-all english channels. Its shocking how much people will just regurgitate the lines they heard on the news the night before, even people who I know are intelligent. That doesn even cover the more subtle influence that 'non-factual' TV shows can have.

I also agree with your view on twitter, facebook and the general 'lets put private information out there so anyone can see'. But hey, I dotn use twitter at all, and I've resisted the farily constant 'why aren you on facebook, crweate an accoutn now' requests I get (mostly from my mum and sisters :/), and I resisted the 'everyoen needs a myspace page' before that, etc..

As far as google with its "you have no privacy" policy, its not suprising. They are a datamining company, which is just one reason why I have never really trusted them. Its amazing how many people dont even look at EULAs/licence agreements. For people who do, its always been fairly obvious that googe has a "all your data belong to us" mentality.

I agree with all of that too.

In today's world, I do wonder if it is even possible to support good things with your money. I don't think it is even possible. I mean I've heard of cases where child protection agencies were actually involved in the opposite, and the people who found out about it and tried to go public were whacked. It's just all so evil, I would say it is even more evil than Sin City, if such a thing is possible.

I really like LOTR, because I think it tells a story that is based in reality, and is the best possible outcome. The only way for the ring to be destroyed is by accident. If they somehow, in their mad struggle for power and dominance destroy that seat of power.

Although money is no longer based on gold (the precious), and retains only an incredibly small fraction of its power (90% less for the dollar), it cannot be used for good. You can become rich, get all the money and power, but you cannot use it for good. You probably won't because when you get there it will change you and you won't be yourself anymore, and even if you somehow resisted the corruption, you just wouldn't be able to use it to do good.

What they have done and what they are doing is centralizing power. The more power they have, the less freedom you have. Don't let them take the last of your power away from you by scaring you or threatening you. They are lies, all lies. Power is freedom if everyone has the same amount, and slavery if only a few have it.