Think of it as an odometer for a search engine.
The Web search service Google has quietly started placing a counter on its home page for a small number of its most frequent users.
Most Google users do not have it, but a select few now have a no-frills counter that with each search clicks higher, noting "You have done 479 searches," or whatever the actual number.
For the curious, an explanatory page linked to the counter reveals that this is a test, or limited-sample experiment of a new search counting feature.
The counter is placed on computer hard drives by a cookie, a software file that a Web site places without the recipient's permission or notification and that transmits information back to the site. "If the number contains more than three digits,'' the counter notes, "you truly are a Google frequent searcher.''
What is going on here? Google, which processes about 200 million search requests a day at no cost to users, said the counter had been placed on the hard drives of fewer than 1 percent of its users.
But the company would not specify how users were chosen or exactly when the test began.
"It's one of our experiments,'' Marissa Mayer, Google's director for consumer products, said. ldquoWe're playing with it to understand what the effects of it would be.''
The counter was inspired by airline frequent flier programs, Ms. Mayer said.
"We've heard people say they think they use Google 50 times a day.'' The intent is not to encourage searching just for the sake of raising the counter numbers, she said, but rather to illustrate just how often users actually turn to the search engine.
"More than anything, this is just something fun,'' she said. "I like to see my numbers go up. I feel like I'm getting smarter when the number goes up because I've learned.''
She said the company had deliberately not publicized the counter experiment to keep from skewing how the surfing public would use it.
Although Ms. Mayer says Google is not keeping count or a record of the searches any specific test user conducts, some privacy experts have raised concerns about the potential to collect such information, especially from a search company as popular as Google.
"Do users know that Google is spying on them?'' said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, "From a privacy viewpoint, the question you'd ask is, 'Why they are logging this?' ''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/t...00&en=6b48de61370e996b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
The Web search service Google has quietly started placing a counter on its home page for a small number of its most frequent users.
Most Google users do not have it, but a select few now have a no-frills counter that with each search clicks higher, noting "You have done 479 searches," or whatever the actual number.
For the curious, an explanatory page linked to the counter reveals that this is a test, or limited-sample experiment of a new search counting feature.
The counter is placed on computer hard drives by a cookie, a software file that a Web site places without the recipient's permission or notification and that transmits information back to the site. "If the number contains more than three digits,'' the counter notes, "you truly are a Google frequent searcher.''
What is going on here? Google, which processes about 200 million search requests a day at no cost to users, said the counter had been placed on the hard drives of fewer than 1 percent of its users.
But the company would not specify how users were chosen or exactly when the test began.
"It's one of our experiments,'' Marissa Mayer, Google's director for consumer products, said. ldquoWe're playing with it to understand what the effects of it would be.''
The counter was inspired by airline frequent flier programs, Ms. Mayer said.
"We've heard people say they think they use Google 50 times a day.'' The intent is not to encourage searching just for the sake of raising the counter numbers, she said, but rather to illustrate just how often users actually turn to the search engine.
"More than anything, this is just something fun,'' she said. "I like to see my numbers go up. I feel like I'm getting smarter when the number goes up because I've learned.''
She said the company had deliberately not publicized the counter experiment to keep from skewing how the surfing public would use it.
Although Ms. Mayer says Google is not keeping count or a record of the searches any specific test user conducts, some privacy experts have raised concerns about the potential to collect such information, especially from a search company as popular as Google.
"Do users know that Google is spying on them?'' said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, "From a privacy viewpoint, the question you'd ask is, 'Why they are logging this?' ''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/06/t...00&en=6b48de61370e996b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE