When I first started designing websites, I found editors that were referred to as WYSIWYG or What You See is What You Get.  For some reason, this phrase resonates with a few things I was listening to tonight when trying to get the boy to sleep.  One of these days, my 3 yo will sleep through the night.  Apparently tonight isn’t one of those nights.

Anyway, I was listening to another TED address today that I found a link to somewhere – just where escapes me now, but I’m getting sleepy early.

In the address, the speaker talks about how Facebook is tailoring what they display on your news feed by what you’ve clicked on in the past.  Those who have clicked on conservative links aren’t as likely to see many links posted by liberal friends.

A dear friend would say just stay off Facebook, they collect too much information anyway.

Did you know, Google does the same thing?  So do other news sites and search engines.  Not just from your browser history, but even analyzing the browser you’re using and your operating system.  Two people on two different computers will get 2 totally different results when searching Google for the exact same search term.  (See the video and the search for ‘Egypt’ on Google).

Smacks of Big Brother doesn’t it?

Check out the presentation below.  It’s only a bit under 10 minutes so won’t take much of your time.