Actually, one could argue they already are abusing it and are doing so with increasing frequency.
They've been tailoring search results to cut out the specialized aggregators, like including their own shopping results above other stores.
The obvious one you've probably seen recently is movies. They now show the actors, related films and rankings, depriving views and ad space from the sites that offered that information.
They've also been doing it with maps for years for search terms like 'x in y city' as well as entering the ratings business. This content is often poor, but I imagine every click into an aggregator is a loss to google as the ad spend potentially goes on that aggregator instead of google.
You could see all of these are attempting to circumvent other businesses and abusing their monopoly. But I imagine none of these businesses want to complain as to be shut out of Google on the internet is death. You can't tell google to not steal your content, without telling them to not list your content.
They seem to justify it with claims that they're just giving searchers what they want, but in the end they own the highways, and now they seem to be putting their own facades up in front of a significant number of the businesses along the highway too which means they have to advertise on google just to get above google's own internal adverts.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but actual search results often seem to appear a very, very long way down the page on a lot of terms these days.
I like the customized search results. They're more often than not helpful to me.
If I want the weather in a city I'm visiting, why wouldn't I want it on the google page, instead of another click away?
The rest of the Internet has no natural right to views and clicks sent their way from google. If google gives users the best search results (among the more than half-dozen credible search engines), users will use them. Do enough hostile things to users and users will go elsewhere. If their competition improves while they stay stagnant, they will also start to lose market share.
Google is improving Google's offering. That's laudable, because it helps Google's users and Google's financials.
Comments
Actually, one could argue they already are abusing it and are doing so with increasing frequency.
They've been tailoring search results to cut out the specialized aggregators, like including their own shopping results above other stores.
The obvious one you've probably seen recently is movies. They now show the actors, related films and rankings, depriving views and ad space from the sites that offered that information.
They've also been doing it with maps for years for search terms like 'x in y city' as well as entering the ratings business. This content is often poor, but I imagine every click into an aggregator is a loss to google as the ad spend potentially goes on that aggregator instead of google.
You could see all of these are attempting to circumvent other businesses and abusing their monopoly. But I imagine none of these businesses want to complain as to be shut out of Google on the internet is death. You can't tell google to not steal your content, without telling them to not list your content.
They seem to justify it with claims that they're just giving searchers what they want, but in the end they own the highways, and now they seem to be putting their own facades up in front of a significant number of the businesses along the highway too which means they have to advertise on google just to get above google's own internal adverts.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but actual search results often seem to appear a very, very long way down the page on a lot of terms these days.
I like the customized search results. They're more often than not helpful to me.
If I want the weather in a city I'm visiting, why wouldn't I want it on the google page, instead of another click away?
The rest of the Internet has no natural right to views and clicks sent their way from google. If google gives users the best search results (among the more than half-dozen credible search engines), users will use them. Do enough hostile things to users and users will go elsewhere. If their competition improves while they stay stagnant, they will also start to lose market share.
Google is improving Google's offering. That's laudable, because it helps Google's users and Google's financials.