# What's the deal with Google's predictive search?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-googles-predictive-search/531795>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 9, 2010, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-googles-predictive-search/531795 "2010-03-09T01:53:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-googles-predictive-search/531795/61 "2010-03-17T15:56:03Z")

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\<shrug\> It’s just a personal preference.

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**Author:** ![markci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@markci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markci)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-googles-predictive-search/531795/62 "2010-03-18T04:56:47Z")

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> [@Bootis](#):
>
> There seems to be no good reason why Google does this. They clearly filter their suggestions, but let actually offensive and ridiculous ones remain. Type in “anal”, no suggestions. Type in “mast” and theres lots of suggestions. add a U, and suddenly nothing. really, google? masturbation is too risque for you, but you’ll allow “why are black people so violent”?

It may surprise you to learn that Google doesn’t employ an army of millions of people to sort though every query anyone has ever typed in to find the offensive ones. Nor does artificial intelligence exist that could do that job reliably. Their system just seems to filter a list of potentially offensive key words.

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