How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet - eviltoast

Google likely alters queries billions of times a day in trillions of different variations. Here’s how it works. Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching for at all. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape.

    • CriticalMiss@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I genuinely want to but I hate subscriptions simply because I’m poor at managing them which is why I’ve stuck with Google all this time.