Is Google Interfering With Your Search Results?
Google’s search engine wields an extreme amount of thanks to the sheer amount of people that rely on the service. Google has assured its users and many of the world’s most powerful governments that the search algorithm is fair and automated to the point where humans have little to no direct impact on it. In class, we discussed how page rank is used in determining which sites get higher rankings through search algorithms. We also discussed how it is important that you guard against sites not taking advantage of this ranking system to artificially raise their rank through adding links. But, this potential interference in Google’s own search algorithm presents an even more dangerous problem. The article accuses Google of not only tampering with the suggestions in the search bar (when someone writes “Does Cornell” what recommendations to complete the search show up), but also not showing the organic search results. This is because Google has moved away from simply showing the top links at the top (similar to how a normal page rank would work) but instead displaying many additional features that Google offers such as news and a quick blurb on the searched item. Take for example a Google search for Cornell. On Google, the first link will be Cornell’s main webpage (this makes sense). But to the right of that is a blurb about Cornell (from Wikipedia) and then below the main website link is a group of three news stories that feature Cornell in their titles. The article says that Google has policies that allow for more editing of this content so that the organic top links do not always show if they are not deemed quality links.
The idea that search queries will not be fairly displayed to users is a distressing idea. It is similar to the threat against net neutrality in that it puts the democratization of the internet in danger. Instead of being a tool that anyone can use to get information and promote themselves it could be monetized or controlled in a way that limits the ability of everyday people to access the power of the internet. Google suppressing organic top searches could lead to companies being wary of agreeing to work with Google, but most likely it will force companies to capitulate to the demands of Google since it is such an important player in the search market. Google is essentially a monopoly when it comes to search engines and even web browsers (with Google Chrome) so it would be hard to imagine companies turning against Google given the threat of Google removing them from their search engine could destroy a company. Although Google has denied the claims made in the article, the idea that these changes could be happening should be scary enough that we look to potentially bring legislation to the eyes of the government. As we learned in class, page rank and other algorithms are extremely powerful tools for search, but if they are misused the potential damage they can cause to consumers is even greater.