That's rude and that's not it, it's the fact that google knows which SO questions are relevant.

If valid criticism is rude, we're all doomed here on HN. The parents point is valid. If you don't like it, that's fine, but rude it was not. Google doesn't know anything more than DDG, so you're just plain old wrong on that argument.

> your colleague may be poor at basic searching and not understand the tools which they use

I don't know about you, but this is pretty rude.