Now Hotpot? Google Probes Have Got to Stop

Exactly how much personalized search does the public need? Apparently lots if you listen to Google. The company has just started Hotpot, a quasi clone of Yelp which is designed to understand you, as a user, a little bit better. Review a restaurant, and voila get better search results!

This is bullcrap. Exactly how does the fact that I think the egg rolls at Dong Hing restaurant are lousy effect my desire to buy the best weed whacker at the best price?

This is the same with all the tracking Google does. When I do a Google search nowadays, I always check to see whether or not I m logged in. If I am logged in, I log out immediately. I do not like trying to be outguessed by Google. In fact, I'm sick of it.

One thing is for sure, although Google claims that this sort of knowledge helps in some social manner, it actually does just the opposite most of the time.

Have you ever done a joint search with someone while on the phone?

Say for example, you're trying to find something about Abe Lincoln, and you and the other person discuss the various results over the phone. With Google tracking turned on, it would go something like this:

Me: "Ok, ok. Try Lincoln 1862 dog park." You: "Nope not there. Here try Lincoln Abe Dog backyard." Me: "There it is. The reference and article." You: "Where?" Me: "Third one down on page two." You: "It says, 'The best deal on a Lincoln convertible was a dog.' It's a blog post." Me: "No it doesn't. It's the Brady photo collection that we were looking for." You: "I don't see anything about Brady." Me: "Third one down page two!" You: "NO! It's not there!" Me: "Did you put the search in correctly." You: "Do you think I'm an idiot…"

This of course goes on for 15 minutes until someone realizes that the Google personalization system messed up the results.

Everyone has gone through this stupidity once or twice, because Google is making decisions it should not be making. Earlier in the day, one person in this dialogue may have been looking for a deal on a Lincoln Town Car. Suddenly, Google thinks that Lincolns are now very important to them.

Sometimes you can deconstruct what Google is trying to do, and it's always off-base. The company should be concentrating on getting the results you actually want not some artificial results it thinks you want.

You can test the different search results on Google with the monitor turned on when you're logged in and with it turned off when you're logged out. The results are not improved by the analysis bot. And I'd sure like to see some evidence that using my Hotpot would make a difference.

I've never been a believer in these sorts of initiatives and have always thought they're just going to become a profit center for selling massive research reports to marketing people. All you can do with such data is find hidden trends and attitudes that may be useful to an advertiser. You may discern, for example, that people hate any price that ends with 96-cents such as $49.96. The reasons are not important, but it's valuable information to have.

I actually have no problems with this sort of research. But it is annoying when it impinges on my search results in a negative way, and that is what seems to be happening.