Is googling risky? A study on risk perception and experiences of adverse consequences in web search

05/26/2023
by   Helena Häußler, et al.
0

Search engines, such as Google, have a considerable impact on society. Therefore, undesirable consequences, such as retrieving incorrect search results, pose a risk to users. Although previous research has reported the adverse outcomes of web search, little is known about how search engine users evaluate those outcomes. In this study, we show which aspects of web search are perceived as risky using a sample (N = 3,884) representative of the German Internet population. We found that many participants are often concerned with adverse consequences immediately appearing on the search engine result page. Moreover, participants' experiences with adverse consequences are directly related to their risk perception. Our results demonstrate that people perceive risks related to web search. In addition to our study, there is a need for more independent research on the possible detrimental outcomes of web search to monitor and mitigate risks. Apart from risks for individuals, search engines with a massive number of users have an extraordinary impact on society; therefore, the acceptable risks of web search should be discussed.

READ FULL TEXT
research
04/21/2022

Public awareness and attitudes towards search engine optimization

This research focuses on what users know about search engine optimizatio...
research
05/21/2018

Intriguing behavior when testing the impact of quotation marks usage in Google search results

Internet research on search engine quality and validity of results deman...
research
10/06/2009

A multiagent urban traffic simulation. Part II: dealing with the extraordinary

In Probabilistic Risk Management, risk is characterized by two quantitie...
research
02/06/2018

Astrophysicists and physicists as creators of ArXiv-based commenting resources for their research communities. An initial survey

This paper conveys the outcomes of what results to be the first, though ...
research
05/06/2021

Users' Perception of Search Engine Biases and Satisfaction

Search engines could consistently favor certain values over the others, ...
research
10/22/2021

Adverse Media Mining for KYC and ESG Compliance

In recent years, institutions operating in the global market economy fac...

Please sign up or login with your details

Forgot password? Click here to reset