Column # 338    February 25, 2022

Grocery stores arrange their goods in ways that encourage customers to buy more on each visit. It only makes sense for a business to do that because larger transactions are more efficient. It wouldn’t make sense to arrange a store that makes it more difficult to fill a cart. Thankfully, when it comes to buying food the customers are not being taken to the cleaners. They end up with food they will consume. Therefore, their larger purchases are more efficient for both the shopper and the store. So what are some the favorite grocery store strategies?

Grocery stores place the main staple items (milk, bread, and eggs) in the very back of the store. That way customers seeking just those items still walk past hundreds of other offerings that weren’t on their mind. Most stores want shoppers to flow counterclockwise around the outside perimeter which is why key items (produce, meats, seafood, dairy, etc.) are located on the sides. By following the store’s perimeter, shoppers are exposed to the ends of the aisles. It’s on the ends of aisles and in the aisles where stores can charge slotting fees for best positioning. Top brand manufacturers pay to have their products displayed at eye level, so that’s where you will find recognized brands.¹

This is how one industry tries to maximize sales and minimize costs. But subtle marketing for groceries is quite harmless. On the other hand, when it comes to manipulating people for nefarious reasons, the Internet behemoths are rather wicked in how they treat the general public. As businesses, such as Google, get bigger and bigger their tracking capabilities, searching options, deceptive advertising methods have become so subtle that people are being conned in numerous ways that are detrimental to them.

Advertising is where the search engines really milk the public along with their advertisers. Originally, ads were placed on the sides of the list of search responses and were clearly ads. But now ads are placed above the search results and a shopper has to look closely to see whether or not the listing is an ad or not. So, here’s what happens.

A person searches for “slanker meats” because they want to shop their favorite meat store. The top of the resulting search listings begins with competitor ads, followed by one of our ads, and then several tempting display ads one of which might even be ours. Then down the page is our actual “free” search listing. Many people do not realize that when they click on an ad, instead of the natural search response that’s lower on the page, the advertiser is charged for the click and the search engine gets undeserved revenue. The customer’s computer now has a cookie in it that will continue to act as a click for at least six weeks every time the “slanker meats” site is opened.

Therefore, by being deceptive in how ads are displayed above natural search responses, the search engines gain revenue from customers who don’t realize they’re responding to an ad they didn’t require to find their store. That increases their favorite store’s cost of business (which makes the products they sell cost slightly more) and uses up their favorite store’s ad budget that could attract new business that increases volume and lowers incremental costs. Of the people who click our ads and make a purchase, 56% are already old customers.

Now multiply that by millions of businesses and millions of shoppers. That results in big money every single day of the year. Here’s a few Google statistics:●    Google Ads is currently the biggest provider of search advertising on the market.
●    Ninety-six percent of Google’s revenue comes from advertising.
●    More than 7,000,000 advertisers use Google Ads Pay Per Click (PPC).
●    Two in five small-to-midsize businesses are running a PPC campaign.
●    Seventy-six percent of the search engine market belongs to Google.
●    More than 650,000 apps serve Google Ads.²

We can see how Google gets 96% of its money. But how do they use it? Do they improve the search engine? Do they lower the cost of advertising to help smaller businesses be more successful and better advertisers? Do they pay more dividends to shareholders? Or do the oligarchs that control Google have a different agenda?

There’s no question that radical leftists, MSM, Federal Bureaucracy, Social Media and Internet behemoths, and educators have been pushing a socialist agenda for years now. Mandates, paper money printing, cancel culture, inclusionary racist ideologies, sexual wokeness, sacrilegious themes, and selected methods of law enforcement have been their hallmarks. It’s become a very disturbing turn of events for conservatives, independents, and Blue Dog Democrats.

But, because so many people trust “big” news sources, the MSM and Internet behemoths are deliberately propagandizing the narrative in order to be influencers for their ideologies. It has already reached to the point where there’s no such thing as a balanced, honest, truthful, comprehensive discussion taking place in the public square. This is a disaster, because for a society or even a family to function, there has to be respect for open dialog covering differing opinions. No one can claim they know it all and their way is the only way.

But, when it comes to Internet behemoths, they believe that the current, dictatorial bureaucratic system is the only way. And total control of the narrative is their right and duty because they are the smartest people in the room. That justifies their banning of certain voices from the Internet because they know best what’s good for society.

The gateway to the Internet for social media apps is Apple’s and Google’s app stores. Therefore Apple and Google have tremendous power in setting the terms all small businesses must adhere to in order to access the marketplace. For instance, Parler continued to grow in sustained popularity until, in January 2021, when it was kneecapped by Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Service because it didn’t do enough to moderate content on its platform in the wake of the January 6, 2021-Capitol riot. That was in spite of the fact that most of the Internet commentary preceding the riot was on the larger more established platforms. Yet it was only Parlor that got squashed. So, you can see that small businesses can be as inventive as they want, but their survival is determined only by their adherence to what the gatekeepers dictate.³

Another sinister manipulation occurs when the search engines do not provide bonafide searches for the keywords. This is not something people can actually notice such as when a website or an individual is cancelled. For instance, Google can manipulate its search engine algorithm to display one-sided search results that may favor one political candidate over another. They can prioritize large businesses over smaller ones. By cherry picking articles they can make people believe masks prevent the spread of the virus. They can make shutdowns seem rational. They can make parents believe they must vaccinate their children with an experimental vaccine even though COVID-19 is less of a health threat to children than the vaccine.^{4 5}

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and TikTok can be over-the-top evil to classes of citizens they don’t want to tolerate by doxing them. (To dox means to publicly identify or publish private information about someone especially as a form of punishment or revenge.) Breitbart recently reported that a Google Maps link was posted, “pointing to locations of donors throughout the Canadian province, with each pin listing their names, donor ID, email address, and the amount they donated, including those as low as $10.” The sole purpose of that was to “invite” radical socialists to pound these people with hate mail and physical harassment.

People turn to the search engines for information, but when the truth is deliberately suppressed for a preferred narrative, they are none the wiser. This is now commonplace. Consequently, some people believe that because Hunter Biden’s laptop information was suppressed, that alone may have swayed ten million voters in 2020. Most stories about corruption on the Democratic side of the ledger were suppressed. Good news for conservatives, if it was found, was called everything except the truth. This is the same way that Tony Fauci has crafted the narrative regarding all of the CDC’s failed policies. He plants phoney stories that are front and center in the searches and the government is openly working hand in glove with the Internet behemoths.⁶

And the most wicked thing the Internet behemoths are doing is manipulating our children. The physical locations of our nation’s children can be tracked by their phones. What they search for is recorded. What they publish on their various social apps is monitored. This permits more devious schemers to feed the impressionable minds of kids “new” ideas involving moral decay and the destruction of freedoms. Getting kids to respond to their feelings and desires for good times are pushed more than personal responsibility, initiative, independence, common sense, critical thinking, and restraint based on biblical laws. In many cases, the Internet behemoths know more about the children than their parents!⁷

Everyone needs to be careful about how they fund the Internet behemoths. The primary goal of the Googles of this world is to gain more power. Being an American is secondary to their worldly ambitions. All of us common folks are mere pawns in their eyes. Think before you act, because someone is watching you—and your paying them.⁸

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

Don't miss these links for additional reading:

1. Grocery Store Layout: Marketing Tricks & Strategy That Lead You to Spend More from Regained Wellness

2. Google Advertising Statistics for 2021 by Kylie Moore from Digital Third Coast

3. Donald Trump Has To Build And Protect Truth Social With Both Hands Tied Behind His Back by: Rachel Bovard from The Federalist

4. Google Reportedly Manipulates Search Results to Hide Controversial Subjects and Favor Big Business by Ben Gilbert from Business Insider

5. Shocking Research: How Google Could Manipulate and Control the Outcome of the 2020 Election by Craig Huey from Election Forum

6. Why Tech Totalitarianism Threatens To Turn America Into Canada Or China Unless We Stop It by: Kara Frederick from The Federalist

7. Metaverse App Allows Kids into Virtual Strip Clubs by Angus Crawford and Tony Smith from BBC News

8. How to Escape Google from Swiss Policy Research