patrick.net

It's an open secret that Google, Facebook (and probably) Twitter were started by the intelligence agencies.

They weren't unchecked, they are nothing more than semi-autonomous government entities.

Google has plenty of government contracts, that is how they get paid off. Facebook as well.

Why do you think Google's "parent" company is called "Alphabet Inc" - as in Alphabet entity, like CIA, DNI, FBI, NSA...

http://www.yandex.com is a better search engine than Google - recommend you try it.

richwicks says

http://www.yandex.com is a better search engine than Google - recommend you try it.

https://translate.yandex.com/ seems to be just as good or better than Google translate too.

And I don't really mind if the Russians are spying on what foreign phrases I'm translating. Not worried about Russia. The real risk to us is our own Deep State which has already tried hard to subvert democracy in the US.

richwicks says

Google has plenty of government contracts, that is how they get paid off. Facebook as well.

I can tell you that they lobby hard to get into government. They have very expensive lobbyists, I’ve worked with them. They do want to take over government function, it’ll make it harder to regulate them.

Well, Google just removed The Federalist from GoogleAds, due to a report by NBC in collusion with a FOREIGN entity called "Center For Countering Digital Hate" headquartered in London, UK.

If The Federalist wants to be smart about it, it would ban Google from even indexing its site.

The more good content which can not be found on Google, the better.

Patrick says

If The Federalist wants to be smart about it, it would ban Google from even indexing its site.

How is that done?

Fortwaynemobile says

I can tell you that they lobby hard to get into government. They have very expensive lobbyists, I’ve worked with them. They do want to take over government function, it’ll make it harder to regulate them.

No that's not going to happen.

Remember yahoo? How about Ask Jeeves? MySpace? That's their future. It's trivial to abandon them.

Google is filled with diversity quota hires so their search engine is no longer the best - and it was definitely the best - 10 years ago. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube censor - they are becoming echo chambers.

They'll always do business with the government, but the public won't.

richwicks says

They'll always do business with the government, but the public won't.

Ill tell you, they've been very successful. They are now in schools, and children are taught to use "Google" and "Gmail". Most digital business that relies on ad revenue is ran through google, so they have a lot of control. Anti Trust agency, much of it abides by Googles asks.

We can all use an alternative like DuckDuckGo, but it's not in schools, and most people don't know about it.