Scientists Benjamin Edelman and Benjamin Lockwood of Harvard University are conducting a research of measuring the search bias of several big search engines such as Bing, Google, Ask and Yahoo. Preliminary results lead them to the conclusion that there’s a bias in Google search favouring Google’s own Internet products like Google Mail:
“Google typically claims that its results are “algorithmically-generated”, “objective”, and “never manipulated.” Google asks the public to believe that algorithms rule, and that no bias results from its partnerships, growth aspirations, or related services. We are skeptical. For one, the economic incentives for bias are overpowering: Search engines can use biased results to expand into new sectors, to grant instant free traffic to their own new services, and to block competitors and would-be competitors. The incentive for bias is all the stronger because the lack of obvious benchmarks makes most bias would be difficult to uncover. That said, by comparing results across multiple search engine, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first. “
