> search engines are used to find things publicly available on the internet This used to be the case. As the internet grew in size search providers felt it was

> search engines are used to find things publicly available on the internet This used to be the case. As the internet grew in size search providers felt it was in best interest in general user to cull these results and present their definition of best at the top. They wanted to solve the needle in the hay-stack problem by taking all the noise out and funneling the best result to the top. Best is a subjective term and I don't think I agree with it. However, your definition is not the same as Googles. Search providers can define what their search engine does the same way a restaurant gets to decide what's on its menu even though all restaurants serve food.