Towards a Framework for Harm Prevention in Web Search.

We introduce a framework aimed at the information science(IS), information retrieval (IR) and data science communities as well asbehavioral and cognitive scientists and policy makers inside governmentand at corporations operating Web search platforms. The goal of thisframework is to instigate collaborative discussion and research acrossthese communities to address potential dangers searchers and society facein modern Web search. We provide an overview of the harms, such aspoor health outcomes, and their possible causes, including searcher andsystem biases being tuned for maximum profit. Modifications to policy,additional evaluation metrics, a mixture of cognitive decision makingtools and improvements to the IR system are the suggested pathways.Examples are provided of how the framework can be put into practice.