The Top 5 Things Wrong in the WSJ ‘Expose’ of Google
0Reported today on Search Engine Journal
For the full article visit: http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/13962/12995613
The Top 5 Things Wrong in the WSJ 'Expose' of Google
Search engines are among the most important and most mysterious pieces of online infrastructure.
Their role (complex as it is) is to bring some semblance of order to the otherwise chaotic, unimaginably large and constantly shifting corpus of information that is the web, so that when you or I are looking for something online, we can find it.
The exact process and factors that search engines use to accomplish that monumental task are shrouded in secrecy, protected by thousands of patents, and may well be unknowable.
But this combination – the pervasiveness and centrality of search engines to our daily lives mixed with the mystery in how they operate – has fueled feelings of confusion and distrust, not to mention more than a few conspiracy theories (many of which, thankfully, have been debunked).
To be fair, there are real and legitimate concerns about how "big tech" in general – and search engines like Google specifically – wield their vast power to shape our world.
There are legitimate criticisms that many in the SEO industry have leveled at Google, ranging from their proclivity to take content from publishers to their data collection practices and their apparent penchant for favoring their own products/services, among others.
No organization is perfect, and Google is no exception. But none of that justifies the use of shoddy, agenda-driven journalism to propagate a false narrative.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Wall Street Journal has done by embracing many discredited conspiracy theories to weave a baseless narrative that the world's largest search engine, Google, abuses its power for its own nefarious purposes.
Their story (you can read the non-paywalled version here) belongs in the cheap fiction section a