Is any other search engine is or was transparent about their algorithm to your liking? Bing? Yahoo? DuckDuckGo?
If google published the definitive spec of their algorithm (i.e. source code to their search engine), would you read hundreds of thousands lines of code? Would you be able to comprehend it? Would you re-read it every week to make sure that hundreds of commits made by google engineers didn't change it in a way you don't like?
It's preposterous to think that you could comprehend their algorithm in a way that allows you to make an informed decision about whether to use or not. Let's assume you understand it and don't like how it works, what you gonna do? Use Bing?
You don't need reassurance that Google's algorithm is aligned with your interests. It isn't. Neither is Bing's algorithm or anyone else's. BMW doesn't make cars that are aligned with your interests. Apple doesn't make phones that are aligned with your interests. They all make products that are aligned with their interest to make money, they put them in the market and you decided with your money whether you think they serve you or not. That system works pretty well.
You have a choice to use any web search engine you like. You can decide whether you like their results or not by making queries and inspecting the results. You are free to create a competing search engine. Those are your rights.
You don't have a right to require google to disclose how their products work. There's a name for it: trade secret. It's protected by law and it's google's right to keep it to themselves.
I don't think I said I had a right to require google to disclose how their products work.
I do want reassurance that Google's algorithm is aligned with my interests. I want that from everyone who provides me with a service, and every corporation I've worked for has wanted that from their suppliers. If I have evidence that a company is going to work against me in the future, or is doing so now, then I'll choose not to buy their products. Understanding what you're buying is a key part of making markets performing well.
I think BMW does actually try to make cars that are aligned with their customers interests, that's why their customers pay for them them. One part of my point was that I'm not Google's customer - the advertisers are.
I can't choose a car solely by inspection from the outside or even with a test drive. I wouldn't be able to know whether a vehicle was safe, efficient, or reliable over a reasonable lifetime. Fortunately, I don't need to know determine these things for myself for two reasons - we have legally mandated safety and efficiency standards, and the workings of cars are not secret, so other people who know more about cars than I do can examine them and publish their findings.
I wouldn't have to understand the complete search algorithm on my own. Just as with encryption protocols which are also hard to understand, openness would allow a large number of people to participate in the scrutiny. Nobody argues that security protocols should be kept secret because it would be preposterous to try to understand them.
The fact that you suggest that if I don't like Google, my only option is to use Bing as if that isn't much of a choice undermines your argument that the market is working well here.
And no, no other search engine is transparent to my liking. That doesn't make transparency into an unreasonable request - quite the opposite.
Frankly I find your position somewhat strange. Markets work well when we place demands on them, because then suppliers know what to make. If people demand a more open search engine, then perhaps Google will provide one, or maybe a competitor will produce one.
Your argument seems to be that I should not publicly articulate my needs, but instead only choose from what is already on the market and not complain about the aspects I find inadequate. I don't understand what good that's supposed to do.
If google published the definitive spec of their algorithm (i.e. source code to their search engine), would you read hundreds of thousands lines of code? Would you be able to comprehend it? Would you re-read it every week to make sure that hundreds of commits made by google engineers didn't change it in a way you don't like?
It's preposterous to think that you could comprehend their algorithm in a way that allows you to make an informed decision about whether to use or not. Let's assume you understand it and don't like how it works, what you gonna do? Use Bing?
You don't need reassurance that Google's algorithm is aligned with your interests. It isn't. Neither is Bing's algorithm or anyone else's. BMW doesn't make cars that are aligned with your interests. Apple doesn't make phones that are aligned with your interests. They all make products that are aligned with their interest to make money, they put them in the market and you decided with your money whether you think they serve you or not. That system works pretty well.
You have a choice to use any web search engine you like. You can decide whether you like their results or not by making queries and inspecting the results. You are free to create a competing search engine. Those are your rights.
You don't have a right to require google to disclose how their products work. There's a name for it: trade secret. It's protected by law and it's google's right to keep it to themselves.