Search is always personal. The stuff we type as we search, in its totality, encapsulates our interests, hobbies and knowledge. It reveals our nationality, the language we are most comfortable in (if we speak more than one), our location (with some caveats) and, even, our socioeconomic position. Use that to filter particular search queries through and each search also begins to reveal intent.

Search is a ubiquitous technology. That means that its use, while intentional, is mostly subconscious. We search for things using Google on our devices. And our search queries, in their entirety, fall into one of three categories:

Writing is a stupendous thing. I type something on my laptop in English and through the magic of the internet and Google translate people in other countries who don’t even speak English can access what I’ve written, understand it; decode it inside their heads using their own perception as a filter and then, build on it by adding their own abstract thoughts to it.

The poster child for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) happens to also be “the most notoriously corrupt company in business history”. Enron whose name is now a byword for corporate greed, corruption and deceit on a truly remarkable scale, was also the deserving recipient of a climate protection award from the EPA, and a corporate conscience award from the Council on Economic Priorities.

In the days when going online meant either staying home and staring at our desktop monitor or going to work and logging in at a desk machine search was the Google.com interface and its instantly recognizable “ten little blue links” format.