Google follows Yahoo! in personalizing search

Google hurries up after Yahoo! yesterday MyWeb2.0 announce: Google Relaunches Personal Search – This Time, It Really Is Personal.
Huh? Google gives an example (not yet posted live) that says:
For the query [bass], Google Personalized Search may show the user results about the instrument and not the fish if that person was a frequent Google searcher for music information

How would Google know you are a frequent music information searcher? It could monitor the types of queries you do and use various methods to tell if you seem to be searching for music information often. But another method — and one using technology Google has already has demonstrated — is to monitor what you click on in the results.

(FYI, a Google patent on personalization based on bookmarks that recently came to light is covered in this SEW Forums thread and in great depth in this Cre8asite thread. Another recently discussed patent also covers things like using clickthrough measurements to refine results. In addition, Google has personalization technologies and patents from past acquisitions, such as Outride).

Patents on personalization based on bookmarks?!? Google recording all the links you have ever clicked and using them?!?
I think I’m going to switch from Google to Yahoo!, just to foster diversity. Yahoo! is more Flickry and more reassuring to me at the moment.

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