Ignore the political landscape for a second because that's a rabbit hole that will make you go mad.
Does a person have a reasonable expectation that Google is providing them unbiased results? Do people use Google for curated content or as a tool?
Would you be upset if Gmail search was paid to push Pizza Hut's email marketing at the top of any search that that it could be a result for?
Would you be upset if Gmail's spam filter had a lower bar for flagging their competitors products as spam?
Would you be upset if every time you tpyed Writer into Windows Search and Word was always the first result?
Would you be upset if you typed Firefox into Bing and a full page ad for Edge was the first result?
Would you be upset if you searched for Chromecast on Amazon and the first page of results were Fire sticks?
If you searched Messenger in Google play and Allo and Hangouts were the first results?
If you searched for channels in Twitch and all the Twitch partners were forced to the top?
If you search for a video in YouTube and YT Red results and monetized videos were forced to the top?
If you searched for reviews of the new Pixel phone and Google manually gave positive reviews a higher rank?
Regardless of what you think about the relity of this specific situation I think its hard to argue that having search be biased twoard/against anything other than what the user is looking for is a dark pattern that deserves to be regulated out of existence since companies clearly can't help themselves. And if any company is providing unbiased results then there's nothing to worry about.
1 comment
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 12.2 ms ] threadDoes a person have a reasonable expectation that Google is providing them unbiased results? Do people use Google for curated content or as a tool?
Would you be upset if Gmail search was paid to push Pizza Hut's email marketing at the top of any search that that it could be a result for?
Would you be upset if Gmail's spam filter had a lower bar for flagging their competitors products as spam?
Would you be upset if every time you tpyed Writer into Windows Search and Word was always the first result?
Would you be upset if you typed Firefox into Bing and a full page ad for Edge was the first result?
Would you be upset if you searched for Chromecast on Amazon and the first page of results were Fire sticks?
If you searched Messenger in Google play and Allo and Hangouts were the first results?
If you searched for channels in Twitch and all the Twitch partners were forced to the top?
If you search for a video in YouTube and YT Red results and monetized videos were forced to the top?
If you searched for reviews of the new Pixel phone and Google manually gave positive reviews a higher rank?
Regardless of what you think about the relity of this specific situation I think its hard to argue that having search be biased twoard/against anything other than what the user is looking for is a dark pattern that deserves to be regulated out of existence since companies clearly can't help themselves. And if any company is providing unbiased results then there's nothing to worry about.