The Google tax is real. Merchants see it as a cost of business, consumers are insulated from it to the point where all they see is a wonderful “free” product fr

The Google tax is real. Merchants see it as a cost of business, consumers are insulated from it to the point where all they see is a wonderful “free” product from Google. The reality is if we didn’t have to do defensive ads on our organic results my company could probably offer 30% lower pricing. But because there’s no easy way to discriminate against google ad clickers we have to charge the Google tax to everyone, as most businesses do. The end result is that nobody cries foul to the search monopoly and its cost to society. Google gets to charge monopolistic pricing without anyone noticing.