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March 14, 2006
gag-oogle
The following is a complaint I sent to Google regarding their decision to completely purge thepeoplescube.com from their search results. If you'd like to also voice your complaint, go here.
Dear Google,I was seeking specific information about a satire website called thepeoplescube.com. Why have you purged it from your search results?
In light of recent decisions you've made, I find myself unnerved at the thought that you may have removed this site from your indexes for ideological reasons. China was able to get you to be their enforcer in China, but why be the enforcer here in the States?
Granted, until you become a department of the United States government, you are not bound by those sections of the Constitution which assure American citizens that their right to free speech will not be curtailed. But I am saddened at the thought that in the case of this political satire website you would deviate from your customary practice of not making value judgements about the content of the websites you crawl.
Other companies can put together a good search engine. It may not be worlds better than Google, but it could be just about as good. The only reason you have continued to dominate the web search business is that overwhelming numbers of people trust you to provide fair and comprehensive search results without garish, flashy banner ads.
In your decision to suppress the voices of dissenters, both in China and at thepeoplescube.com, you have begun to undermine that trust, the cornerstone of your continuing success. Before these two incidents I would never have considered purposefully switching to another web search site. I, like many Americans, am disturbed by the oppression of the Chinese people by their government. But there's generally very little I can do about it. And like many Americans, I don't like to see my fellow citizens' opinions suppressed, whatever those opinions may be. But there's generally little I can do about that.
Well, Google, I think you've just given me something to do.
I hearby announce my intention to cease using Google as my search engine of choice. Furthermore, I am placing the following robots.txt in the http file root of chezjoel.com:
User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /
Posted by joel at March 14, 2006 11:42 AM
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Comments
Alas, Microsoft is to Sauron as Google is to Sarumon.
I'm not sure which is worse.
Posted by: chopper ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.chezjoel.com//nav-commenters.gif)
at March 14, 2006 03:11 PM
Alas, I put Google behind Microsoft on this one. For Microsoft is sometimes heavy handed, sometimes shortsighted. But Bill Gates has said that Google's move in China was a bad idea. Hopefully this means MSN/Live won't be striking a similar bargain.
I have Google = Saruman, China = Sauron.
Microsoft is trying to figure out where Bree is.
Posted by: Joel at March 14, 2006 04:39 PM
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