Salon.com > graph search http://www.salon.com Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:20:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 You can’t hide on Facebook http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/facebooks_search_privacy_flim_flam/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/facebooks_search_privacy_flim_flam/#comments Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:48:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13173078 Privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani makes an important point about Facebook's big rollout of new search functionality on Tuesday. We can't opt out, and as recently as December, we could.

Facebook's Graph Search will allow users to search through their networks of friends to find the answers to questions like "what sushi restaurant in San Francisco do my Japanese friends like the most." CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a big point of emphasizing how "privacy aware" Graph Search will be -- implying that if you pay proper attention to your privacy controls you can control what other people find out about you.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/facebooks_search_privacy_flim_flam/feed/ 10 Facebook’s new stalker search http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/facebooks_new_stalker_search/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/15/facebooks_new_stalker_search/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:15:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13172339 It's Saturday night in the not too distant future. You walk into a crowded bar. At first glance, you don't recognize anyone, so you pull out your phone and log into your Facebook app. You tap in a query: Show me the single women (or men) who are in this bar, adore Mozart, Macklemore and the TV show "Community" and are part of the network defined as "friends of my Facebook friends." Oh, and it would probably be good if they were STD-free, but you might need a different app for that.

If you're lucky, Facebook spits back a few profile pics at you, and you're suddenly ready to buy someone a drink who is already pre-approved for your personal checklist. You're a happy participant in the future of search, Facebook-style.

The scenario is just one of countless permutations conceivably made possible by Facebook's newest next big thing, Graph Search, unveiled Tuesday morning to the accompaniment of a zillion simultaneous tweets and live blogs. Graph Search, despite its stolid name, looks like a big deal, a way for Facebook to exploit everything it knows about you and your network of friends to deliver customized search results that Google can't touch. Depending on which analyst you care to believe, Graph Search could savage not just Google's stranglehold on search, but also the existing business models for online dating, job search services, Yelp, Craigslist and who knows what else.

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