The Google Suggest Crystal Ball - US vs. Germany Edition

We previously briefly discussed the Google Suggest choices to complete "why do women" :


http://www.google.com/ (United States Google)


What many people don't know is that Google has various landing pages and returns different results depending upon the origin country of the Internet connection used to query it.  So, by default, my machine loads http://www.google.com/ because I am in the United States. 

In the UK, for example, the address is www.google.co.uk, for Japan: www.google.co.jp, for Indonesia: http://www.google.co.id/, and for Germany: www.google.de, etc.  You can type these in or find them by, ahem, Googling the word Google and the country in question (such as Google Indonesia).

I find interesting the comparison between the Google Suggest choices, when returned by Google US and Google Germany, for the same phrase "why do women":


US Google users seem to have a negative view of the female character in general (lying, nagging, and two references to cheating as well as a shot at abused women) while concurrently focusing on their physical attractiveness (facial hair, thongs, and baldness).

German Google users seem to have different and less judgmental cultural views of women than US Google users, with only one reference to cheating in common with the US but also an observation of a gender difference regarding fashion and the observation of openly-displayed female homosexuality being more common than male homosexuality (something I've seen referenced in other places with regards to Western culture).

I've never lived in Germany, travelled there, or know anyone from there, so all I can do is wonder if this is really an accurate representation of the overall German culture or simply that of German Google users.  Just because Google is ubiquitous here in the US, and US Google users are representative of the wider culture, are these things the same way in Germany?  And what types of German people are online?  Is it almost everyone not in abject poverty, as it is here?  These are things I don't know, so I can't guess if German Google Suggest is at all representative of overall German culture.

I hope the reader Stuttgartgirl who commented on the Sex Boxen post reads this and can offer input on German vs. US cultural attitudes towards women. 

Hell, I hope anyone with input shares it!  :-)

~Riot.Jane

2 comments:

  1. I saw you on linked in and decided to visit.

    This is hillarious. I tried it for the UK and it was no 2 on the list! lol

    Thanks for sharing. very interesting.

    Keep writing.
    www.programmesmart.co.uk

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  2. if one were to search "why do men", the autocomplete offers a similarly unfortunate list of suggestions. Google simply autocompletes what most people search for. "why do women/men lead such pleasant lives" simply isn't a common search term ;). maybe Germans just don't go to the 'net with their interpersonal problems. I think it's bizarre that ANYONE would search online for an answer to "why people cheat" but then again, I don't get reality television, "eat gross stuff for cash", or "Springer" either.

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