Michael Zimmer.org

When the deal between Google and AOL was first announced, I (among others) complained that Google was introducing bias into their search engine results by teaching AOL how to “game” the system in order to optimize the placement of AOL sites within Google’s search results.

Now, according to John Battelle, it seems that this part of the deal might be gone. Since it seems to have been eliminated from their arrangement so quietly, I wonder if Google is trying to pretend they never considered allowing such a controversial practice. But, of course, they now readily admit that their search engine results are no longer purely organic…