The fact that they're not actively pushing users to searching for certain bittorrent-related terms may not be a laughing matter, but the way people are responding to it certainly is.
I think that this idea that Google's autocomplete functionality is "actively pushing users" is dangerous because it could equally be applied to search results, or anything else. It seems to imply that anything Google returns has equivalent potential agenda and bias. The idea of Google being "fair" seems based on the premise of a strict firewall between advertising/promoted links and the famous algorithm for recommending results that users most likely actually want to find. If they're any smarter than Yahoo, they'll understand the second is what enables the first.
It would sure turn my world upside-down if it ends up that Bing wins takes the "fairest search" title in the minds of the users. But we may be seeing early hints of Google faltering here.
Could there be any connection with the recent executive rearrangement here?
