Sexism

Is Google's search engine sexist?

No, says the Internet giant -- despite some awfully quirky evidence pointing to the contrary -- we're just, well ... it's complicated.

Google appears to discriminate against women when you use it to search for certain phrases and word combinations. For example if you Google the phrase "she invents," the Web site spits out the suggestion: "Did you mean: he invents." The same thing happens with many other two-word pairings such as "she owns," "she intelligent" and "she responsible." Conversely you don't receive the suggestion "Did you mean: she invents" when you search for the phrase "he invents." But the best was that if you Google "she" with many words stereotypically associated with women -- such as "cooks," "cleans," or "mops" -- the search engine does not offer up: "Did you mean: he cooks" or "he cleans" or "he mops." Oddly enough, Google did seem to treat females and males differently when it came to many two-word combinations beginning with either "she" or "he." Including even "she Google."

In a friendly response, a representative said Google was aware of the issue and offered up a not-so-simple explanation for it: "Google develops its own spell-checking algorithms based on sophisticated machine learning methods, using cues from aggregated user input, Web documents, and many other sources," the spokesperson replied via e-mail. "The algorithm provides a 'best-guess' alternative suggestion that we think might improve the search results, and is completely generated without human input. It can be thought of as a suggestion offer, rather than a definitive answer."

Oh, and Google's "sexist" quirk? It doesn't work against women in every case.
For instance, if you search for the word combo "she stupid," it does spit out the reply "Did you mean: he stupid." You also get "Britney Spears" as your first search result. And "Paris Hilton" as your second. So, really, you can't be too hard on Google. After all, it's obviously dead-on with some things.