Silicon Valley tech giant Google revealed that the company removed some local news content from its search results in Australia as part of an “experiment.” Critics have called the situation a “chilling illustration” of the power that Google holds over the internet.

Google had tweaked its algorithm to bury links from major Australian news providers. Google confirmed the tweak and downplayed it, adding that it conducts “tens of thousands of experiments” every year.

A company spokesperson commented: “Every year we conduct tens of thousands of experiments in Google Search. We’re currently running a few experiments that will each reach about 1% of Google Search users in Australia to measure the impacts of news businesses and Google Search on each other. In 2018, the value we provided to publishers through referral traffic alone was estimated at $218 million dollars.”

Google reportedly plans to end the experiment in February.

Actually you can't prove how many users are affected by "experiment", as only Goolge know this.

This guys made big tweaking for years before today, just made it all silent.