The internet exists, is way to big to manually curate, and google is just providing a window into it with algorithmic searches. There is always talk about how google promotes this or that by having this search return X and how they should adjust it. They always "adjust the algorithm" or ban sites from their search results entirely. Google's search is better (I've tired and use others..) and thus it wields enormous po…
Google does not need or deserve the ability to keep the way all human knowledge is accessed and found today a trade secret.
Additional notes on this to address the obvious criticisms:
- Google would still have the benefit of it's actual data/crawled content that presumably would not be disclosed and constitutes a significant portion of their business advantages.
- It's unlikely competing search engines would somehow leapfrog Google's technology by having access to their search ranking algorithms. At best copying Google would make them "as good as Google", but you need to be "better than" to get people to switch or offer features and benefits they don't.
- Even if all of Google's data and algorithms were cloned by competitors, everyone would still by and large use Google because Google is the default on almost every platform and browser, and Google has a significant lock-in effect over their platforms.
Which is to say, requiring one of the world's most powerful monopolies to disclose the algorithms by which knowledge is found would have minimal to non-existent impact on their business but have significant benefit to society.