On Bing, a search for “Hillary Clinton’s health” brings up “Hillary Clinton’s health issues,” “Hillary Clinton’s health problems,” and then third is “Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.”
These autosuggestions may have changed by the time you are reading this book, but others and myself have documented the clear protection of Hillary Clinton’s autosuggestions by Google during the time period surrounding the 2016 election.634 If Google manipulated the autosuggestions to protect Hillary Clinton during the election, which all evidence indicates they did, they are most likely doing it for other people, issues, and topics as well.
They don’t just manipulate the top search results for various topics for their own financial interest or political reasons◦— sometimes Google outright hides what would be results for certain topics so nothing shows up at all. Sometimes these censored pages are the result of DMCA takedown complaints; sometimes they’re the result of a court order which is fairly common in England with their “right to be forgotten laws” that mandate Google hide certain pages from their index; and sometimes it’s just because Google feels it’s the ‘right thing to do.’ These topics are considered to be “un-Googleable.”
Due to laws in the U.K., Google must remove certain search results when someone obtains a court order to enforce their “right to be forgotten law” which prevents not only the media from reporting on certain facts, but also prevents Google from including them in the search results in all countries that are part of the European Union as well.635
As I discussed previously, singer Elton John was able to obtain a court order to silence the British media about him and his ‘husband’s’ fake marriage and deviant lifestyle, as well as remove tweets on Twitter (and videos on YouTube) that mentioned their names in connection with their sex scandal, and that censorship was also implemented on Google as well. Any article mentioning the keywords “celebrity threesome sex scandal” and Elton John’s name were dumped down a memory hole and don’t show up for people in Europe.636 Google has different filters in different countries, so in the United States pages will still show up, but in Europe Google has to follow the law and censor such results.637
Sky News found that one of their articles about Kelly Osbourne getting sick on the set of her show The Fashion Police was removed from Google in Britain (Google.co.uk).638 This was just two months after the “right to be forgotten” law had passed, enabling people to request the removal of search results they claim are “outdated or damaging” to their character.
The Guardian found that stories about a former Scottish soccer referee who admitted lying about the reason for rescinding a penalty issued to a team had been removed.639 The Telegraph had stories of theirs hidden about the former president of the British Law Society who made fake complains about a colleague of his hoping to get him fired.640 The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) reported that shortly after the law was put in place Google had censored at least a dozen links to some of their stories as well.641
In 2013 when sexually explicit selfies of dozens of A-list celebrities were hacked from their iCloud accounts and posted online, Google made most of the direct links to the photos un-Googleable, and removed the pictures from their Google Image search.642
The Church of Scientology has used a number of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices to have information about their ‘scriptures’ removed which reveal the strange beliefs of high-level Scientologists about the “Lord Xenu” and the creation myth founder L. Ron Hubbard (a former science fiction writer) concocted for his cult.643 Scientology has also had search results blocked in the EU by using the right to be forgotten statutes.644
Google has admitted censoring results for the Chinese government and other oppressive regimes around the world. For example, until 2010 Google had filtered out all websites supporting the independence of Tibet and Taiwan, and even any search results about the infamous Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 where hundreds, possibly thousands, of student protesters were killed by the Chinese government during a pro-democracy demonstration.645
Websites and articles in Australia, Israel, Canada, France, Germany, India, and others have also been censored◦— either due to court orders, or to comply with those countries ‘hate speech’ laws.646 And of course Google Earth and Google Street view have removed images that governments consider matters of national security.
People within the Federal Trade Commission have actually recommended filing a lawsuit against Google for their search manipulation.647 In 2012 the FTC ended a two year investigation into Google after repeated complaints that their dominance gives them an unfair advantage over other companies because they aren’t just in the search engine business, they’re in the cell phone business (Android), and also sell books, music, and movies through their Google Play store.
Google even has their own product and restaurant reviews that are in direct competition with Yelp, which they have threatened to remove from their search results altogether.648 The Federal Trade Commission investigation revealed that Google had placed restrictions on search results for content from their competitors, but despite high level staff members at the FTC wanting to file an antitrust suit against them because they were using their monopoly to cause “real harm to consumers and to innovation” through anticompetitive tactics, the commission surprisingly did nothing.649 Google did however agree to make some voluntary changes in the way they run the algorithms, trying to appease the FTC.
FTC senior advisor Tim Wu admitted Google is “reducing consumer welfare.”650 And during the antitrust hearing Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that, “While the company is a great American success story, their position in the marketplace has led to legitimate questions about whether they have used their market power to disadvantage competitors unfairly and ultimately limit consumer choice.”651
A few years later the European Union charged Google with antitrust violations for unfair business practices and fined the company $2.7 billion dollars.652 One of the officials involved in the decision said, “Google has given its own comparison shopping service an illegal advantage by abusing its dominance in general Internet search. It has promoted its own service, and demoted rival services. It has harmed competition and consumers. That’s illegal under EU antitrust rules… Google has come up with many innovative products and services that have made a difference to our lives. That’s a good thing. But Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service wasn’t just about attracting customers by making its product better than those of its rivals. Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors.”653
Aside from manipulating and censoring search results, Google is engaged in more disturbing and dangerous activities◦— putting people’s personal information, their homes, and even their lives at risk.
Google keeps a log of everything that everyone searches for and puts tracking cookies (small files) on your computer. Such information is sold to advertisers. This means Google (and anyone they sell that information to) knows about people’s possible health problems from them looking up their symptoms, as well as any personal interests that may be embarrassing if made public. They even know people’s political leanings, which could be used to discriminate against them by a current or potential employer.