Google interferes with the search algorithm, WSJ says

Never a dull moment for Google: here in Europe tensions are high on several sides, from controversies on competition (such as the new Google Shopping) to those on copyright (as recounted in the Google News France case), but even in the United States the tension against the tech juggernaut are very high. The latest chapter is the direct attack struck through the longest article from Wall Street Journal, that right from the title pledge to reveal “how Google interferes with its search algorithm and changes your results”.

A Wall Street Journal article against Google

The exposé is signed by four different authors – Kirsten Grind, Sam Schechner, Robert McMillan and John West – and reveals that Google uses blacklists, small algorithmic adjustments and an army of contractors to “manipulate what we actually see” into the SERPs. A pretty clear position, the editorial goliath’s one, that does not lack in critics (direct or veiled) for Big G’s search system and, therefore, for the “internet giant” itself.

“Every minute, an estimated 3.8 million queries are typed into Google, prompting its algorithms to spit out results for hotel rates or breast-cancer treatments or the latest news about President Trump”, write the journalists as opening. These “are arguably the most powerful lines of computer code in the global economy, controlling how much of the world accesses information found on the internet, and the starting point for billions of dollars of commerce.”.

Google interferes with search results

And even though the search engine’s philosophy  – since its launch twenty years ago – is always been about “to provide people with useful info” through and algorithm repeatedly defined as “objective and essentially autonomous, unsullied by human biases or busi