RushmoreDrive = Dumb idea

Not sure why the Los Angeles Times is writing about RushmoreDrive, the “black” search engine owned by Barry Diller’s IAC conglomerate, considering it originally launched back in April sometime. Maybe it was a slow news day today. In any case, it’s worth pointing out again what a bad idea this is — in my opinion at least. I’m not black, obviously, so I’m sure some people might argue that I don’t really deserve to have an opinion on the subject, but I feel compelled to write about it regardless. Do we really need racially-segregated search engines? Even after reading RushmoreDrive founder Johnny Taylor’s rationale for the service, I just don’t see what compelling purpose this serves.

Is it really that huge an inconvenience if someone searches for the word “Whitney” and gets something that is allegedly “white” like a museum of art, and what they were really searching for — Whitney Houston — is in fourth place? (Let’s ignore for the moment the possibility that they might actually search for “Whitney Houston” in the first place, or that they might even be looking for the Whitney Museum of Art) Do we really need a dedicated search engine so that black people can get results from “soul food” sites like chitterlings.com higher up than they might be in a “white” search engine? (I am not making these examples up, by the way — these are Johnny Taylor’s examples).

Taylor says he doesn’t want to call it an “Afro-American” search engine, because he wants it to be broader than that, and to appeal to all black people. But are all black people going to want to search for Whitney Houston or soul food? I find that hard to believe. Why not have a British search engine too, so that British people can find results for soccer when they search for the term “football,” instead of getting a bunch of NFL links, or so they can get results about French fries when they use the term “chips” instead of links to information about Ruffles or Pringles?

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks RushmoreDrive is a dumb — and possibly even offensive — idea. Corvida of SheGeeks said much the same in a post she wrote when the site was originally announced back in April, and I think she pretty much hit the nail on the head.

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Tagged as: race, search

Adam Green

Sorry, Matthew, but I think you are wrong on this one. Are you assuming that the algorithm used by Google is some sort of absolutely correct result? It is the definition of bias. All search engines are biased in this way. They are based on the link pattern of the majority of the Web pages they find, and the clicks of users. If the "majority" controls the behavior, then that is inherent bias. It makes sense for a search engine like RushmoreDrive to try and attract a different user base, and then reflect their bias instead. This isn't racism, it is good business sense for a publisher. It also gives advertisers a more targeted readership. Isn't that one of the goals of publishing?

mathewi

I'm not saying Google's results are absolutely perfect, Adam -- I'm just saying I don't think they're so biased that a whole new, racially-biased search engine is necessary, that's all.

And your argument about publishing makes sense, but that's not the argument that Johnny Taylor was making in the articles I've read. That's what I was responding to.

In any case, thanks for the comment.

Adam Green

You are right that the "We need a black Google" pitch is a little over the top, but it makes a great headline. If RushmoreDrive makes the unilateral decision that people of a certain "race" prefer a certain item, that is silly. Race is a cultural construct and varies over a wide range of behaviors. On the other hand, the general model of trying to attract a certain demographic group, and then using their behavior to direct search engine results is a great idea. The perfect search answer surely varies from one group to another.

calamityjake

Matthew, to respond more to your tangential point than the main one:

I think the idea of British results actually makes a fair amount of sense, and I wonder whether Google (or some other search site) actually does adjust its results based on the location of the user's IP. I mean, Google automatically sends me to google.ca when I'm on Canadian wifi--why shouldn't the results they give me be similarly sorted based on my location? Like I said, that seems very doable, and I wonder if anybody's already doing it (just without creating a startup that will never get much use).

mathewi

That makes a certain amount of sense to me, Jake -- location-based filtering, I mean. But that's not what we're talking about, really. RushmoreDrive is filtering based on race, and making assumptions about preferences as a result (i.e., soul food instead of "white" food, Whitney Houston, etc.). In fact, when it comes right down to it, I'm not sure I like location-based filtering either -- I like the option to search Canadian results, but it bugs me when Google forces me to go to google.ca.

calamityjake

Right, I agree that race-based search results probably don't make much
sense, and I don't think location-based results should necessarily be
the default, but I'm sure google keeps track of use based on location
and could easily give users an option to search with location-biased
results. And that would be a lot more meaningful than trying to
acommodate the cultural diversity of an entire ethnicity.

Sent from my iPod, forgive any typos.

Me

I have used RushmoreDrive.com and find it much better than Google. It's not perfect -- and no search engine is. But as a black man, I like it -- and that's the point after all, right? RushmoreDrive gives US what we want. If it doesn't work for a white man, don't use it because it wasn't made for you. WE like RushmoreDrive and it makes perfect sense to us.