The fundamental design assumption of Google is that important stuff has lots of links to it.

Very good point... this has worked against retailers, will work against location-based search, and is also working against victims of CIA experimentation - the worst, looniest sites are at the top of the search results because people find them easy targets of ridicule or satire.

Google and its gullible users are still a problem.

And what's to prevent retailers from burying competitors by posting smack about them, or paying SEO companies to post smack about them, now that Google makes a (naive) attempt to evaluate semantics?

You think so, do you?

Wait until you find out what the intelligence community has really been up to.

Hint: those flu shots in Africa aren't for the kids' health./p