How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet
www.wired.com
Testimony during Google’s antitrust case revealed that the company may be altering billions of queries a day to generate results that will get you to buy more stuff.

cross-posted from [email protected]

  • Google may be altering billions of search queries daily to generate results that increase purchases.
  • Testimony in an antitrust case revealed an internal Google slide about changes to its search algorithm, involving “semantic matching” to generate more commercial results.
  • Google covertly changes user queries, substituting them with ones that generate more revenue for the company and display shopping-oriented results.
  • This manipulation benefits Google’s profits but harms search quality and raises advertiser costs.
  • Despite legal challenges, Google’s market dominance allows it to continue these practices, impacting users’ ability to access unbiased information.
  • dan@upvote.au
    10·
    1 year ago

    Have you tried Kagi? It’s a paid service (which is good for people that don’t like ads) and the results seem pretty good. They have a trial plan where you can do 100 searches. Where possible, it prioritises small sites that don’t always appear in Google results at all, and it has far less SEO spam than Google.

    • macallik@kbin.social
      10·
      1 year ago

      It feels like every other post on privacy and technology is someone pushing the (paid) search engine Kagi nowadays…

      • dan@upvote.au
        4·
        1 year ago

        I’m not affiliated with Kagi or anything, it’s just refreshing to have a fresh approach to search engines that doesn’t involve using advertising to pay for it. I haven’t actually paid for a plan yet, but I do have a trial account, and it seems like a pretty good product.

      • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        1 year ago

        Probably, since every other post is about search engines, and many of us have been cursing the ever-worsening search results from google, with no real alternative (that actually provides better results than google).

        Now that there is finally an ad-free product that performs like Google did 5-10 years ago, of course, I want others to have the same experience and not get frustrated when they can’t find the information they’re seeking.

    • YuzuDrink@beehaw.orgEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      I really need to try them and see how many searches I actually use. Even their higher paid tiers seem like way too few searches to me. But I have no actual idea.

      • dan@upvote.auEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I would have agreed in the past, but they have an unlimited plan for $10/month now, which is why I’m more interested.

        • blindsight@beehaw.org
          4·
          1 year ago

          I get that search is expensive to run, but $120 USD/yr is a lot.

          Maybe it’s worth cancelling something to pay for it, but idk. I won’t even look at metered tiers. Knowing my scarcity aversion, I’d never use it. I didn’t use a single Neeva trial search since I was hoarding them like Max Ethers from Final Fantasy.

          • dan@upvote.au
            2·
            1 year ago

            Yeah. It’s definitely expensive, which is why I haven’t signed up for a subscription yet. Still thinking about it.