Interests of Google users in information pollution terminologies: an infodemiology study

Aim This study aimed to identify the interests of Google users in the terms “fake news,” “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “conspiracy theory,” particularly in specific health-related contexts. Methods This longitudinal and retrospective ecological study examined computational metadata concerning the interests of Google users from 25 countries regarding the search terms “fake news,” “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “conspiracy theory.” Initially, relative search volume (RSV) data for these four topics were extracted from Google Trends, encompassing all categories for the period between January 2004 and March 2025. The data underwent seasonal decomposition to identify the trend, seasonal, and residual components of the collected time series, using Python 3 programming libraries within the Google Colaboratory interface. The Mann–Kendall test was subsequently applied to assess the significance of the observed trends. Additionally, search queries were qualitatively evaluated to identify health-related ones. Lastly, Spearman correlation analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between the proportion of health-related queries and both Internet penetration and mean schooling levels in the selected countries. Statistical significance was established at P < 0.05. Results Searches for “fake news” showed an increasing trend in all countries, while “misinformation” followed a similar pattern except in France and Japan. Interest in “disinformation” increased in most countries but decreased in Italy and showed no trend in France and the United States. For “conspiracy theory,” decreasing trends were observed in eight countries and increasing trends in 16. Furthermore, a total of 52 health-related queries were identified, with seven linked to “misinformation” in 10 countries, five to “disinformation” in seven countries, 16 to “fake news” in 15 countries, and 24 to “conspiracy theory” in 17 countries, primarily related to COVID-19 ( n = 44; 84.6%). Finally, a significant positive correlation was found only between the percentage of health-related queries and internet penetration for “misinformation” (rs = 0.48, P = 0.017). Conclusions Overall, these findings support the increasing interest of Google users in terms related to information pollution over time, although the association of these terms with health-related queries appears limited. This underscores the importance of implementing media education—particularly in schools—as a long-term strategy to promote a better understanding of key concepts among the population and to encourage the pursuit of information from diverse and reliable sources. Moreover, international organizations should actively monitor and regulate the emergence and spread of new terminology related to information pollution, especially in the context of growing internet penetration worldwide.