What if Search Engine DAC ("Distributed Autonomous Corporation") was framed thus? Brainstorming here:
The ranking algorithm is set in stone, open-source, and publicly available. (Perhaps the algorithm could evolve with human intervention by way of a stakeholders-elected board of directors and/or development team, with rounds of proposals for changes to the algorithm somehow democratically mediated? How?) The blockchain is the search engine index, perhaps including keyword rankings, reasons for those rankings, and also an index of keyword/key phrases queried over, say, the last ninety days (anything older than 90 days is automatically "pruned" from the blockchain).
"Mining" consists of spidering the web and updating the database, and/or handling user queries. (Updates to the database have to therefore somehow be tied to mining. How?)
I've thought through the possibilities of pegging an incentive to privacy (for example, paying a fee to the network to encrypt a query and the results--paying that fee in any cryptocurrency), but the fact is, anyone can create total privacy surrounding their search queries . . . can't they? If they can't, how could a DAC solve that problem?
OR: users could pay a fee to have no advertisements displayed alongside search results. (This begets a whole other problem, perhaps to be solved by another entity: "Keyword Advertising DAC.")
What Things could happen in your internet experience, Oh Users, which Manned Organizations have no incentive to offer you (for example, because advertisers will pay them more than you will)?
Ask yourselves, Oh Users of the Interwebs: what would you pay to change with your internet experience? Please answer this question! It is very important!