I used to work for a company making a SaaS tool for SEO teams to use to see how their site was ranking for their desired keywords on Google. This meant searching Google six million times a day from a motley crew of grey-market proxies and IPv6 providers.
We're definitely in a Google bubble. It becomes very clear that they have intense control over what shows up on the first page of searches, especially in their Featured Snippets and Carousels at the top, and their native-looking ad results.
Control over search results is incredibly powerful in terms of anything from influencing the zeitgeist, to controlling marketing efforts at a grand scale, through to straight propaganda.
We really run an incredible risk as a society by putting too many eggs into the Google basket. Using their browser to use their service to consume their results means a complete monoculture; and while they're not really visibly abusing it now, it's clear that they can subtly manipulate things for a long time before they get caught, and they have the platform to be able to do far more should they (or any government actor forcing their hand) decide they want to.
We're definitely in a Google bubble. It becomes very clear that they have intense control over what shows up on the first page of searches, especially in their Featured Snippets and Carousels at the top, and their native-looking ad results.
Control over search results is incredibly powerful in terms of anything from influencing the zeitgeist, to controlling marketing efforts at a grand scale, through to straight propaganda.
We really run an incredible risk as a society by putting too many eggs into the Google basket. Using their browser to use their service to consume their results means a complete monoculture; and while they're not really visibly abusing it now, it's clear that they can subtly manipulate things for a long time before they get caught, and they have the platform to be able to do far more should they (or any government actor forcing their hand) decide they want to.