I'm not a Google expert either -- whatever that would mean -- but I've worked in large software organizations. My point was that the linked article naively conceptualizes Google as a unitary entity that either "knows" something or doesn't.

As to your point, a software engineering organization releases products that are the results of myriad goals and constraints (requirements, priorities, schedules, bugs, etc.). Products aren't merely reflections of what the engineers can or cannot do. So it's likely that the search team can filter crap results? Is that really all that we need to know before we decide that Google search is intentionally designed to profit from spam?

I have a Ph.D. in Google and I can confirm definitively that Google's development processes are similar to any other large software company.

Whoa, I'm not saying that Google is intentionally profiting from spam. I don't think TFA is even saying that. I think the point is that filtering bad results doesn't seem to be a technical hurdle they can't leap, so we're eliminating one reason Google search results are frequently filled with spammy content farm sites.

Google has to maintain the status of a common carrier (somewhat).

If that filter the Alert team came up with triggers a lot of false positives, that would be hurting their business since legitimate websites could get excluded from search results (imagine the backlash).

Now I'm not defending them; I actually think they aren't doing it because they don't know how to handle the situation (profits loss versus angry users).

But I'm also pretty sure Mr. Obie Fernandez wouldn't like to be dropped off the face of the Internet just because it has ties to Jacksonville (yeah, cheap shot done on purpose: we know how filtering works and how hard to get right it is).