Aarghh. Sometimes it’s annoying enough that Google tailors my search results based on my ‘user behaviour’. And since my user behaviour scores exceptionally high in searching for jQuery codes and CSS snippets, I get a lot of CSS results when looking for a plumber. Helpful? Not really.
There is a way around all that: opening an incognito window in Chrome and searching in Google ‘all afresh’. But who really wants to go to such lengths when all we want to do is Google all day long on phones, ipads and basically any working device picking up a decent network. I just wish there was a simple option within Google to turn this function off.
I registered with StumbleUpon the other day to make a frightening discovery. Only after filling in a basic profile (gender, age & location), I was asked to select a few interests from a list. But… seems this list has been generated based on my very basic profile submissions (of my gender, age & location). I started looking for web design.. computers.. anything technical really would do. To my horror there are NO such options on my list. Instead I get served a list of interests which sound dreadfully ‘female’… as in female three decades ago…
So I decided to do a little test, sign out, and register again as a male.
Here we go; I do get Action Movies, but instead of Alternative Energy (for guys), I (as female) get Alternative Health. Guys get Ancient History whereas I get Antiques. Hmm, I always loved reading about the Vikings but I will have to go looking for some naff cupboard instead.. Guys get ‘Babes’ and ‘Beer’!! I get Beauty instead 🙁
It doesn’t end here.. I get the choice of ‘Cats’ instead of the guy’s option of ‘Business’, I get ‘Dogs’ instead of ‘Computers’, I get ‘Facebook’ instead of ‘Electronic Devices’.. I get ‘Home Improvement’ instead of ‘Humor’, I get ‘Interior Design’ instead of ‘Internet Tools’. And I’m given ‘Married Life’ instead of ‘Multimedia’ :((
As I also got ‘Spirituality’ instead of ‘Sports’, and ‘Weight Loss’ instead of ‘Video Games’ (thank you)… I will pray – while starving to death – that StumbleUpon will change its ridiculous profile generated gender biased lists ASAP.
Come on StumbleUpon, this is 2012!!
Chicks options:
Blokes options:
Quite shocking really, that you “stumbled upon” this gender bias – they’d better get their act together. In the meantime, just like when we were kids, it’s still more fun to be a boy – they get all the good stuff like UFOs 😉