Bill On Business

Region Wide Web is a term I muttered a few nights ago on Twitter whilst weary from overwork and constant battles to emulate the user experiences between Geographies or overcome geographical bias on searches caused by encountering limited  deploys & search relevancy rules for UK / US / CA / AU. Having spent many long nights at a search engine developing “UK Search Relevancy”, I wondered how many of my good intentions caused serious frustrations.

The  term Region Wide Web is meant to give a semi provocative name to the increasing use of IP addresses, browser sniffing and other geo-targeting techniques to provide “region specific” relevancy, content or restrictions. You’ll find several references to this issue over the last few months on this blog. Increasing amounts of my internationally mobile friends and contacts have expressed a growing frustration at “too smart for it’s own good” bugs in their web experience that can be broadly categorised as unwelcome geo-targeting.

Examples iinclude Rhapsody refusing to allow US customers to use their software whilst abroad , iTunes charging 79p versus 99c, search engines tailoring the relevancy of results found within their Global index based on host IP and localized blends of the Global search index that are delivered regardless of selecting a local option. Other examples of only truly having access to a Region Wide Web include increased restrictions on making purchases for products in one country if the credit card is detected to be used in another region. Whilst many aspects of regionalizing the web via local detection have been delivered to assist and protect online users, increasingly the same technologies are being used to curtail the online user’s capacity to access less expensive intangible products in foreign markets or information in other countries.

Whilst country level blocks on freedom of speech are extreme versions of a Region Wide Web, the subtle changes seen in search engine results on even globally relevant search queries is a worrying step in the direction of a fractioned web experience where there is no unified consumption of information across geographies and ultimately the “World Wide” aspect of the web retreats into Geo-Silos.

Ironically as more of us become “global citizens” with multiple home countries, our web data exposure via search and online product propositions has never been more processed by our current estimated geo-location and to varying extents commercial motivations towards expanding the revenues of local search advertising and regional price deltas. (DVD Regionalizing of the web’s content?)

In no way am I decrying search engines or the people (like my old team) who spend long hours trying to ensure geo relevancy influences the search engine results page. Rather the growing inability to access a truly global snapshot of the web, simultaneously across geographies, is a concern.