Does anyone else get the impression that Google News knows what the results it gives you are about? Try a search for Gmail Privacy, which you understandably would if you wanted a range of views on the concerns people have been expressing about Gmail’s Privacy Policy (single cookie for search and email, no guarantee that emails will be deleted, etc.). In case the top two results have changed since I did the search, I got Google Responds to Gmail Privacy Concerns and Google Gmail Privacy Issue Overblown before any of the negative press.
Okay, time for a huge change of tack. I was about to suggest that we all know the result of a search for ‘best search engine’, but I just did that search to make sure and Google was below the fold in the first page of results. I removed the word ‘best’, but still no Google; AltaVista took the top spot. Reducing to simply ‘search’ left Google at the number six spot. It’s just as well I wasn’t actually looking for a search engine, because those are bad results. Shame on Google.