Isn’t that just like Safeway or the NYT? Except these companies probably exercise way more control than Google, and their customers likely enjoy the curation.
But I agree that there are comparisons with a Gas station.
A gas station is there for one reason - to sell you what the owners find profitable. What is sold and what is displayed are chosen for that reason only.
Google is exactly like this.
What it is not, is a responsible organizer of the world’s information or a search service, or in any way responsible to the interests of searchers unless they align with the interests of advertisers.
"Consumers favor sodas that are advertised to them frequently, too."
A) Information is not Soda, it's not an arbitrary choice
B) Soda is also a physical distribution business - Coke and Pepsi dominate physical distribution, shelf space etc. - these problems don't really exist in news, or rather, in totally different ways.
So - 1) they are different kinds of 'products' in terms of their civil relation (i.e. we don't care about gossip information), and 2) the businesses are actually different.
Google presenting particular results influences users.
Pretending that Google is merely passively reflecting user preferences rather than actively shaping them makes no sense.