Google Excluding Controversial Sites

from the not-as-inflammatory-as-you-might-think dept

While the headline is a bit scary, the story isn't as bad as it could be. It seems that, in accordance with local laws, Google is excluding some controversial sitess on their French and German versions. Both countries have various laws concerning certain controversial topics. It was these laws that put Yahoo in trouble for auctioning Nazi memorabilia (and having Tim Koogle be accused of being a war criminal). Google's main US site, however, continues to link to those sites. I'm not really sure how this is news. Google has shown in the past (in the US) that they obey local laws (no matter how ridiculous) when it comes to removing certain sites from their search results. While it would be nice for Google to stand up to the more ridiculous of these censorship laws - it's not really their position to do so. It should be the blocked sites themselves that challenge the laws.

Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss
From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This