Interviews show Google automating mental health ads has boosted big firms and sidelined independent therapists, forcing them to spend more or face irrelevancy
The company's push into health care is a case study in how tech giants dominate small businesses. And the U.S. government may have something to say about that. Tweets: @lucas_shaw , @lutherlowe , @mhbergen , @mhbergen , and @matthewstoller Tweets: Lucas Shaw / @lucas_shaw : .@mhbergen and @sbanjo wrote about the power and peril of everyone's favorite utility: Google Search. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Luther Lowe / @lutherlowe : There has been more incredible journalism about Google's abuse of dominance in the last four weeks than in the last four years: 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/... 2. https://www.bloomberg.com/... 3. https://www.nytimes.com/... 4. https://themarkup.org/... 5. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : Google's health team has added several recent features for mental health in search, including treatment questionnaires. But so many searches about wellness turn up paid results, ads. And therapists / health marketers we spoke to said there's a clear market dynamic there. https://twitter.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : My new @BW story looks closely at Google's main business and its impact on therapy, a profession near to my heart and, I hope, yours these days. w/ @sbanjo https://www.bloomberg.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : “In fact, so many search results are stacked with ads that one health-care investor says his firm advises portfolio companies not to bother tweaking websites to inch higher in Google search listings. Only paid results matter.” https://www.bloombergquint.com/ ...