[thisisnotatest]

You're simply wrong. It is in Google's long-term financial interest to continue to provide objective, trustworthy search results. For a non-Google example of something similar, see the recent story of Apple CEO Tim Cook challenging a shareholder who challenged the impact of Apple's environmental policies on Apple's bottom line: http://gizmodo.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-shuts-down-anti-enviro...

[brudgers]

Oh bloody fucking hell, Cook told shareholder activists to piss off because a CEO's job is to tell shareholder activists to piss off. Rarely is it so easy as in Cook's case where the activists were total wingnuts, had no business case since Apple's investment in renewable energy is almost certain to payoff over the long term, and presented a massively unpopular position. They got the microphone because their pitch had homerun written all over it.

In Google's case, their officers are responsible for optimizing the mix of objective search results with revenue producing search results. That optimum can be described as just good enough not to drive too many queries away while maximizing clicks to their customers. There's no legal requirement or demand from shareholders for a wall.

And indeed the very idea of tailoring search results to an individual's past browsing history is always going to push sites that share data with Google to the top of the results page.

TANSTAAFL.