Sir, – Why not legally require Google to split into a commercial and non-commercial arm – Google Commercial and Google Organic? There are plenty of business models where the commercial arm of the company makes the money (by selling its services and product) and the profits feed back into the altruistic and non-profit arm.
As a user of the commercial arm you would understand that you had implicitly agreed to volunteer your data in return for getting a fast search result which was relevant to you – based on your internet history, marketed to you by the highest bidders (which could be political organisations or bog-standard businesses).
If you were using Google Organic (which would operate far slower) you would be confident that a different algorithm was being used. Your likes and preferences and website visits would not have been used for political or commercial self-aggrandisement.
You would see an organic information stream as the result of your search, untainted by commerce. – Yours, etc,
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ALISON HACKETT,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.