Around the time of the Indian election in May, a badly-headlined story began spreading which asked “Did Google affect the outcome of the Indian election?” The answer was no, it hadn’t. But beneath the headline was an iceberg.
A non-peer-reviewed study, not carried out by anyone affiliated with Google, looked at the effects on undecided voters of tweaking the search engine’s search results on different candidates – showing positive or negative results. Though not rigorous, it did highlight the possibility that if Google were so minded, it could influence floating voters, and so any close election.
Google responded that “Our results reflect what’s on the web, and we rigorously protect the integrity of our algorithms. It would undermine people’s trust in our results and company if we were to change course.”
Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, expressed his frustration last week with peoples’ lack of trust in “big data” companies like his own. If only we would let companies mine our health data, we could save 100,000 lives every year, he argued. “We get so worried about [data privacy] that we don’t get the benefits,” he said.