I got an email this morning from Google regarding new Terms of Service that will go into effect next month, May 2024. Here is Paragraph 4 of the new TOS:
- Democracy on the web works.
Google search works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been “voted” to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web. As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted. In the same vein, we are active in open source software development, where innovation takes place through the collective effort of many programmers.
So... Google will determine for us what they think is good or bad in terms of web searches and content.... what could POSSIBLY go wrong with that policy?!
If you have ever followed any of the 'dead internet theory' rabbitholes, google isn't a search company any longer. Rather a publishing company that collects a tiny subset of links (which are actual sites and could conceivably be a result of the search used), and fakes presenting them as millions of search results when its really the same 20-30 links repeating over and over. And excluding the vast amount of content out there.
Aka, the 'deep web' isn't a tiny pocket of content unseen by the great and powerful content-scraping algos, but the vast majority of the internet. With a tiny handful of sites posing as the entire internet via accomplices like google.
And all to present a largely edited and 'finessed' take on things, not aligning in any real way with reality. Which is essentially exactly what fake news does.
Subsequently, their policies shouldn't really matter, especially when it pertains to algo activity, since its plausible they might not even have an algo any longer.