Web Dragons

A recent Forrester Research survey found more users using search engine during a period than email, making web search the Internet's new killer application. While we know nothing about search technology, we nevertheless count on the authority and trustworthiness of the information we receive. In fact, we are so trusting that we use the web to build our own knowledge structure--and do it in public, too, rather than in the privacy of our own library. This book introduces the changing ways in which we locate information on the Web, and how what is presented to us as a result of our search is determined. It is critical, in part, in its presentation of the problems of web spam and of the current approach to web searching--and presents solutions that give power to users rather than the advertisers and the search engines.