Search engines have improved. Bing, DDG, Yahoo are all better than Altavista. But none of them are as good as Google. That being said, no entity is above criticism. The monopoly criticism just doesn't fit though, unless we're redefining what that word means.
It has always been strange for me to understand Google search as a monopoly. First, there are competitors. Second, it's free (yes, I know you pay with data). Third, you can use the internet without using any of Google's services (except adsense, I suppose). How is Google's search a monopoly when it's the user who is deciding they prefer it to Bing or Duck Duck Go or Yahoo? Perhaps my understanding of monopoly is incomplete because this makes no sense to me.
Yes. A lot of media critiques try to discern bias in the content. However, bias exists prior to that. What and who is covered is bias. Ignoring a topic could be bias not how the topic is covered.