Want to Build a Better Internet? Stop Searching for Solutions

In a recentarticle in The Guardian, Cory Doctorow called for search reform. “Search is the beginning and the end of the internet,” he wrote. While I agree things need to change, a reformed Internet built around search is like a reformedenergy policy built around oil. If we only look for solutions through the narrow lens of search, we’re unlikely to solve these problems at all.

Cory’s article is a tight encapsulation of widely held concerns over search. We share too much private information with search engines. They hold too much power over what is relevant and important. And there is a troubling lack of transparency and accountability into how search engines weigh these decisions.

His bottom line: Vesting this kind of power with a handful of companies is a “terrible idea”.

Fair enough, but when he ventures into possible solutions, Cory, like so many other Internet watchers, makes a serious wrong turn. “Put that way, it’s obvious: if search engines set the public agenda, they should be public.”

He’s correct in pointing out that we need a “transparent, participatory solution”. But he’s taxing search as both the villain and the liberator, when neither label holds.

Continues @ http://corp.primalfusion.com