>The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a

>The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market [...], but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence That's because it's not a free market. It's a system of political patronage where if you don't have political support, someone (possibly competitors, or even the Department of Justice) will go hunting for you. It's not merely distasteful, it's deeply corrupt.