Previously, DuckDuckGo had conducted a study which suggested that Google’s filter bubble (referring to web content being personalised to suit the worldview of the user) could have influenced the 2012 presidential election. The debate over the growth of politically polarised areas of the internet has grown since 2016, amid concern about the improper influence of some web content on democracy.

In August, US President Donald Trump accused Google of “rigging” its results with a liberal bias. Meanwhile, the search engine has been repeatedly criticised for serving up misinformation and hate speech in its search results.

Now DuckDuckGo has conducted another study, and concluded that most users see very similar Google results, whether they are logged into their Google accounts, logged out, or searching in a private mode (‘incognito’). Eighty-seven people were involved in the study, all of which were recruited from DuckDuckGo’s Twitter.

“The filter bubble is particularly pernicious when searching for political topics. That’s because undecided and inquisitive voters turn to search engines to conduct basic research on candidates and issues in the critical time when they are forming their opinions on them,” the DuckDuckGo blog post detailing the study said.

“If they’re getting information that is swayed to one side because of their personal filter bubbles, then this can have a significant effect on political outcomes in aggregate.”

The study found that a large majority of participants saw search engine results that were unique to them, even when adjusting for changes in location and time, and regardless of whether or not they were browsing while logged in, logged in and incognito, or logged out. These differences included links which appeared as top results for some users not even appearing on the first page, while results within Google’s ‘infoboxes’ also varied between users.

The study included searches for terms relating to divisive political issues, such as ‘gun control’, ‘immigration’, and ‘vaccinations’. In one case, while searching for ‘gun control’, one participant reported a National Rifle Association (NRA) video appearing at the top of the search results, while another saw a Wikipedia page at the top, and another was returned the same NRA video but no Wikipedia research in the top 10 links.

According to DuckDuckGo, the variation between users in incognito mode and logged out of Google was approximately the same as when browsing normally while logged in.

Google has claimed that a very small percentage of its search results are personalised, and that when a user is logged out or searching incognito, it does not personalise results based on their search history and personal data stored by Google.

Previously, DuckDuckGo had conducted a study which suggested that Google’s filter bubble (referring to web content being personalised to suit the worldview of the user) could have influenced the 2012 presidential election. The debate over the growth of politically polarised areas of the internet has grown since 2016, amid concern about the improper influence of some web content on democracy.

In August, US President Donald Trump accused Google of “rigging” its results with a liberal bias. Meanwhile, the search engine has been repeatedly criticised for serving up misinformation and hate speech in its search results.

Now DuckDuckGo has conducted another study, and concluded that most users see very similar Google results, whether they are logged into their Google accounts, logged out, or searching in a private mode (‘incognito’). Eighty-seven people were involved in the study, all of which were recruited from DuckDuckGo’s Twitter.

“The filter bubble is particularly pernicious when searching for political topics. That’s because undecided and inquisitive voters turn to search engines to conduct basic research on candidates and issues in the critical time when they are forming their opinions on them,” the DuckDuckGo blog post detailing the study said.

“If they’re getting information that is swayed to one side because of their personal filter bubbles, then this can have a significant effect on political outcomes in aggregate.”

The study found that a large majority of participants saw search engine results that were unique to them, even when adjusting for changes in location and time, and regardless of whether or not they were browsing while logged in, logged in and incognito, or logged out. These differences included links which appeared as top results for some users not even appearing on the first page, while results within Google’s ‘infoboxes’ also varied between users.

The study included searches for terms relating to divisive political issues, such as ‘gun control’, ‘immigration’, and ‘vaccinations’. In one case, while searching for ‘gun control’, one participant reported a National Rifle Association (NRA) video appearing at the top of the search results, while another saw a Wikipedia page at the top, and another was returned the same NRA video but no Wikipedia research in the top 10 links.

According to DuckDuckGo, the variation between users in incognito mode and logged out of Google was approximately the same as when browsing normally while logged in.

Google has claimed that a very small percentage of its search results are personalised, and that when a user is logged out or searching incognito, it does not personalise results based on their search history and personal data stored by Google.