Having spoken to a bunch of people that either have just left Google or still work there, practically all of them think this was not so much a leak as a placed bit of news to support them in potential future anti-trust cases.
There is not much that could help them. The search engine monopoly times wont repeat, despite some people trying very hard to build a regulatory captured Alphapersude monopoly. For that you need to offer an actual edge over the competition. Treating the users worse isnt one. Which brings us back to OP, progress will luckily eat anyone attempting that.
