Google - An Angel or the Devil?

The Devil...
In the information literacy classes that I teach, there is a full week of nothing but Google searching. Students learn how to:

• Narrow to a specific site domain using the advanced search feature
• Use the news, timeline, and realtime tools
• Formulate searches that get away from long sentence searching by utilizing keywords with " ", +, and -

Oftentimes students are amazed that they can locate much more credible information just by taking about 5 minutes (or less) to really think about their search terms, as well using the tools Google has provided.

This is all well and good, but a recent class left me baffled. I was demonstrating several sample searches on the overhead projector. Many students were walking through the steps with me. Right in the middle of explaining the search results, I hear: "But wait... I don't have the same link you have."
I make it a point to stop and go back just a few steps to see if maybe the student missed a step. In doing so, she assured me that the same clicks were made. I then chose to walk over to her computer and see for myself... and low and behold, she was right! She didn't have the same results. "Huh..." I said. "This could just be a fluke. Let's try another search and see what results we get."
So, as a class, we formulate another search. Same thing. By now, I'm getting a bit annoyed. Everyone should be able to have the same search results displayed if the search is done the exact-same-way-every-time. But that just wasn't happening.

We continued to move on during class, but I was still quite bothered by the situation. So, by the time I returned to my desk, I was on a massive information hunt for anything that would explain to me what was happening. Ironically enough, (I really couldn't have planned it any better) I had a link that I saw in a stream of twitter feeds from a friend and colleague of mine titled: "If you haven't seen this Ted talk on internet filtering and personalization, you HAVE to!" I'm not sure how it caught my eye...but it was so timely that I was a bit freaked.
Take a look:

I'm still miffed, and not sure really what to do about it.... but then there are the times that I really really love Google.

An Angel
In the news, There has been limited coverage of the Morganza Spillway catastrophe in the major news stream media. This is a topic that hits home (literally) with me since my home town is the good 'ole Morgan City (yes there really is a town that's west and south of New Orleans!). The news that you are hearing discusses Morgan City (since that's the end of the line for the Mississippi), but it has had limited coverage.

Google to the Rescue!
Using a few of the tricks that I teach my students, I have been able to locate the local news from the Atchafalaya Basin area. These articles have been much more beneficial than the mainstream news stations like Fox and CNN. I was able to find the most recent news articles like this one, this one, and even realtime twitter updates. Thanks to Google, it has truly allowed me to feel as if I am right there watching the impending doom happen. I still have family and friends in the area...so it's been very important for me to be able to keep up with what's happening.

Additionally, Facebook has been a fantastic use of primary source information. Friends that still live in the area have taken pictures, and Morgan City even has a Facebook page. So yet again, I have felt as if I'm right at home.

So with all of this being said, Google can definitely be a great source for information, but I don't like the fact that they are personalizing the information that is being found. Any thoughts?