Navegando / Browsing

Search engines are supposed to be non sectarian and impartial. The best ones should offer, first of all, the most popular sites, as well as those more relevant to the topic being searched.

Google’s easy-to-use interface and personalized user experience comes at a cost. They are politically biased and go as far as to censor or push further back those not agreeing with their political views. I've confirmed this comparing their search results from other more relevant and impartial search engines.

Furthermore, it’s no secret the search engine giant catalogs the browsing habits of its users and shares that information with advertisers and other interested parties.

Bing is a superior non-biased search engine. In addition, Bing image search is superior to its Google rival’s and much more intuitive.

Swisscows is a unique option on my personal list, billing itself as a family-friendly semantic search engine. They also pride themselves in respecting users’ privacy, never collecting, storing or tracking data. It uses artificial intelligence to determine the context of a user’s query based on semantic data recognition that give faster "answers" to queries. In addition, Swisscows does not store users' data.

 How Facebook has gotten away with its constant abuses dealing with the greatest raw material of all time, data about human preferences and interactions.

July 4.– Data is the primary raw material of our time — and Facebook is a key player in that arena.

But here’s the curious thing: Until the current brouhaha about Donald Trump’s posts, no matter what charge had been levied against the firm by whichever privacy or competition authorities, Facebook always portrayed itself as completely unperturbed.

Its nonchalance beats even the past imperial swagger that, before the age of data imperialism, U.S. oil companies used to be famous for.

 Apr.26.– Some big thinkers dare to dream that digital innovations will produce ideal political transformations. In particular, many of our smartest people think participatory democracy will emerge only via the internet.

The basic idea is that people will get their information from the internet, discuss issues on the internet, form political alliances on the internet, and finally vote, all while sitting in front of a computer. Is this a feasible future?

 Washington DC, March 8.– Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) joined House and Senate colleagues in introducing legislation to restore a free and open internet. The legislation would overturn a 2017 move by the Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that gutted net neutrality protections enacted by the Obama Administration.

In a joint statement, Leahy, Sanders, and Welch said: "A free and open internet is essential to our economy, a free flow of ideas, creativity, and participatory democracy. The Administration's decision to repeal net neutrality is bad for our democracy and bad for consumers and entrepreneurs, especially in rural areas, and a gift to the big telecom companies who can now pick and choose who has access to the internet and at what speed. Our legislation will reverse this anti-consumer move and ensure that the internet remains open and accessible to all Americans."