[yshavurah] Google and Jew Watch
- From: "Cheryl Levine" <clevineys@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Havurah Listserv" <yshavurah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 21:52:37 -0400
Dear All,
Thanks so much for responding to my questions about the petition and issues of
censorship regarding Google's search results on the word "Jew." You have all
been very helpful. I was especially glad to read Arlene's last email about
Google's response and have copied and pasted it below for those of you who'd
like to read it here. I thought you'd also like to see the email I have sent
to Google about all of this. You may write also if you wish to:
comments@xxxxxxxxxx
Dear Google Team,
Just wanted to take a moment and tell you that my husband and I were very
impressed and pleased to read your explanation regarding the search results
involving the Jew Watch site. We feel you have been very responsive to the
concerns that have been raised and your explanation helped restore our
confidence in you.
Thanks again for your attention and sensitivity to this issue.
Cheryl Levine & Stephen Green
Havurah, it's been good to work through this issue with all of you.
Cheryl
**********************************************************************************************************************
Google
An explanation of our search results.
If you recently used Google to search for the word "Jew," you may have seen
results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by
the sites in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google. We'd like to
explain why you're seeing these results when you conduct this search.
A site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by
computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance
to a given query. Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear
that cannot be predicted. A search for "Jew" brings up one such unexpected
result.
If you use Google to search for "Judaism", "Jewish" or "Jewish people", the
results are informative and relevant. So why is a search for "Jew" different?
One reason is that the word "Jew" is often used in an anti-Semitic context.
Jewish organizations are more likely to use the word "Jewish" when talking
about members of their faith. The word has become somewhat charged
linguistically as noted on websites devoted to Jewish topics such as these:
a.. http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol01/vol01.174
b.. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah081500.asp
Someone searching for information on Jewish people would be more likely to
enter terms like "Judaism," Jewish people," or "Jews" than the single word
"Jew." In fact, it's likely that most of the people currently using Google to
search for "Jew" are those who have heard about this issue and want to see the
results for themselves.
Our search results are generated completely objectively and are independent of
the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google. The only sites we omit
are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to
manipulate our results. However, you can choose to screen most hate sites from
your search results with our optional SafeSearch filter, activated from the
preferences page linked off Google's homepage.
We apologize for the upsetting nature of the experience you had using Google
and appreciate your taking the time to inform us about it.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
p.s. You may be interested in some additional information the Anti-Defamation
League has posted about this issue on their website at:
http://www.adl.org/rumors/google_search_rumors.asp
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