I suppose if it were "since I left Google/Microsoft .." you'd be more right, but industry-wide practice is usually something that's relatively out in the open especially for former insiders
In my own case it was in the throat, literally unable to swallow anything for days due to severe pain, cause was mono.
Fun fact I discovered through the ordeal is that the very act of thinking about saliva causes saliva to secrete, so it's practically impossible once you realize you have a saliva problem to stop it, since with a problem on hand you cannot but think about it and the very act of thinking about the problem causes the very problem to worsen
Search engines are not just about quality of results. A reason to use Google is that it's what everyone else uses, so by using it you also get for free a picture of what kind of results everyone else is getting
Aaron Swartz was truly prescient