What part of search engines (and everyone else) using their customer's data to improve their service is news? We get articles on HN most days on A/B testing an

What part of search engines (and everyone else) using their customer's data to improve their service is news? We get articles on HN most days on A/B testing and other things you can do to improve your performance, and I'm quite sure Google doesn't route my search results like this for nothing: http :// www .google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miniclip.com%2F&ei=KnRITbyhPIzQgAejqfmOBg&usg=AFQjCNHqQo9TrXtXXM5lDpiCmNQO9xwkhw