Don’t give your search engine hints about your insecurities

Advertising is notoriously formulated to create and capitalize upon viewers’ insecurities. Giving your search engine — and all of the advertisers that leverage the information it collects on you — easy access to the insecurities you already have just does the dirty work for them. Making things easier for advertisers who want to capitalize on your insecurities to sell you products and services doesn’t sound like a huge deal compared to what happens when you search for medical information. But it still has some unsettling effects that you should avoid, if you can.

Amanda Hess recently reported for Slate that a category of searches she’s dubbed “Google, am I normal?” is a “scintillating resource for advertisers.” Hess explains, “I’ve been tipping Google off to all the real ailments and imagined insecurities that I already have, at a pace of about once an hour, every hour of the day: celebrity diet, pants are uncomfortable, migraine difficulty speaking, before and after plastic surgery, and worst cramps ever why.” Each of those gives an easy in to advertisers, who don’t even have to show you an ad first to get you to think about your insecurities, and how their products might help.