[mikeklaas]

Why is this written as a sensationalist exposé when it is plain as day that Google is doing this?

Almost all of these examples are Google serving non-webpage metadata alongside SERPs and are clearly delineated as such. Personally, it doesn't bother me in the least that they use their own databases to serve this metadata rather than agnostically linking to competitors.

[bobds]

I posted a comment not too long ago, implying that Google modifies results when it suits them and I received a lot of downvotes. The comment was snarky, but I've talked to a lot of people that really buy into the "Don't be evil" mantra and think Google's results are never hand edited.