I'm of the opinion that so long as they clearly mark that it's 'Google' shopping or flight results there is nothing wrong with the practise, it makes clear business sense and most companies would try the same. In terms of Google shopping, its a damn aggregation of other stores, presumably they get a small cut of sales via some affiliate program, but really they're in the position to do this more efficiently by directly handling people who use Google, rather than shuffling them to a 3rd party site, which would deteriorate the user experience.
No one complains when they manipulate search results to drop companies (e.g. rapgenius.com) in search results. So where must the line be drawn for 'unbiased' search results?
>> "it makes clear business sense and most companies would try the same"
True, that's why there are regulators. If you're the clear market leader in one thing using that power to promote your other products to people at the expense of competitors is wrong. It's similar to MS with IE. They were the leading OS manufacturer and they used that power to promote their own browser.
>> No one complains when they manipulate search results to drop companies (e.g. rapgenius.com) in search results. So where must the line be drawn for 'unbiased' search results?
This was a punishment BECAUSE RG manipulated rankings. Perfectly justified in my opinion.
No one complains when they manipulate search results to drop companies (e.g. rapgenius.com) in search results. So where must the line be drawn for 'unbiased' search results?