filter bubble

I just watched the following profoundly depressing TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

While it is no surprise at all at all that the Internet has both facilitated instant global communication and increased insularity with the diversification of news sources, I don't think I realized to quite what extent my online habits shaped the information which I received. The benefit of getting what you want is obvious; the downsides to being given _only_ what you want are more insidious. Out of curiosity, I did a search for what some of the algorithmic "signals" that Pariser talks about that Google might use to alter search results; below is a list generated by a random German blogger dude that doesn't contain any real surprises, I suppose, but it made me wonder if there is a market for a purposeful search engine scrambler that will always throw in a few 'wild cards' into your search results to make sure that you are getting more of the whole picture. My understanding was that the filter was designed to try and take you to the most _relevant_ page (i.e. if you type in Britney Spears, the number one search result should be the official Britney Spears website, not a creepy stalker's website that just consists of the name 'Britney Spears' repeated five thousand times), but if that were the case, then _anyone_ typing in "Egypt" (as in Pariser's talk) should get as their first hit a Wikipedia type article with a general run down on Egyptian history and current events, not ads for travel companies, right? If any of the Googlers in my life want to weigh in, I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say.

Oh, and my baby has a TOOTH!!! so exciting.

Proposed possible filter modifiers:

1. our search history
2. our location
3. the browser we use
4. the browser's version
5. the computer we use
6. the language we use
7. the time we need to type in a query
8. the time we spend on the search result page
9. the time between selecting different results for the same query
10. our operating system
11. our operating system's version
12. the resolution of our computer screen
13. average amount of search requests per day
14. average amount of search requests per topic (to finish search)
15. distribution of search services we use (web / images / videos / real time / news / mobile)
16. average position of search results we click on
17. time of the day
18. current date
19. topics of ads we click on
20. frequency we click advertising
21. topics of adsense advertising we click while surfing other websites
22. frequency we click on adsense advertising on other websites
23. frequency of searches of domains on Google
24. use of google.com or google toolbar
25. our age
26. our sex
27. use of “i feel lucky button”
28. do we use the enter key or mouse to send a search request
29. do we use keyboard shortcuts to navigate through search results
30. do we use advanced search commands (how often)
31. do we use igoogle (which widgets / topics)
32. where on the screen do we click besides the search results (how often)
33. where do we move the mouse and mark text in the search results
34. amount of typos while searching
35. how often do we use related search queries
36. how often do we use autosuggestion
37. how often do we use spell correction
38. distribution of short / general queries vs. specific / long tail queries
39. which other google services do we use (gmail / youtube/ maps / picasa /….)
40. how often do we search for ourself