It didn't look like an advertisement.


A recent study by the people at the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that most of the online population reports that they are confident that they know how to conduct web searches, and that most of the time they are satisfied with the results that they receive from these searches. On the other hand, in this same study, a significant percentage of users report that they can't distinguish between a "real" search result and a sponsored ad, or don't know that such a difference exists. And that suggests that if someone runs a search for "global warming" on AltaVista, they'll probably get as a first result the Terminus En web site - a site devoted to (to my mind, at least) rather esoteric discussions of the end of days and the signs (like global warming) that tell us that this end is quickly approaching. Though I can envision someone who reaches this site scratching his or her head and asking "how did I end up here?", it a fair guess that he or she would rather readily realize that the site doesn't exactly deal with global warming from a scientific, or even semi-scientific, perspective.



Go to: Equal in the eyes of cyberspace.