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.
