what's really happening to Google ...and the net?

Repeatedly, people have pointed to the internet as a bastion for individual expression and free thinking. Equally, fears that this freedom maybe threatened have been increasingly voiced. But the 'design' of the internet has been deemed 'ungovernable', so that these threats are not often taken seriously. For instance, the attempt of MSN to establish their own browser to make marketing easier did not enjoy much success.
One of the 'staples' of the internet to date has been Google, a search engine that delivers the most results -and more objectively than Alta Vista and Yahoo did in the past.
But with its flotation on the Stock Exchange, Google's success is being exploited in different ways, and the uncritical reliance on it as a source of information on the internet has to be revisited.
Increasingly, in recent months, I have noticed that my search results are filtered to accommodate advertising. Bold links are cleverly displayed in advantageous positions... much more effectively than pop-ups.

But also, some independent sites that had previously ranked high no longer appear!

Some days ago, I tried searching for my recently lost phone model, and clicked Google Images to see which shop had it. Normally, this should have yielded hundreds of images. But I was baffled to find there were no image results! I had used this as a way to compare products and prices (such as a particular music title at the best price), or even to see images relating to a specific search term. But this feature is one that clearly falls foul of the new sponsors of Google and has become subject to manipulation...

Repeated changes have been very noticeable in the last four months. This transformation is happening fast and it is becoming deeper.

The danger is that Google and the basic activity of searching the internet generally become co-opted by commercial, corporate and other interests, to the extent that the prevailing version of reality online is one filtered to agree with those interests.
'Independent internet' could be reduced to the handing out of leaflets (at events, etc) with the URLs of independent sites, making it possible to find them. But this will make it much harder for independent voices to be heard and be accessed by the broader public on the internet. Perhaps 'webrings' will offer a way out. But the illusion of the internet as an easy vehicle for free expression is rapidly disappearing.