[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Google quietly deletes 100+ controversial sites from search results

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 24 Oct 2002 09:03:21 -0400
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
Subject:        	FC: Google quietly deletes 100+ controversial sites from search results
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com



http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963132.html

   Google excluding controversial sites
   By Declan McCullagh 
   October 23, 2002, 8:55 PM PT

   Google, the world's most popular search engine, has quietly deleted
   more than 100 controversial sites from some search result listings.
   

   Absent from Google's French and German listings are Web sites that
   are anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi, or related to white supremacy,
   according to a new report from Harvard University's Berkman Center.
   Also banned is Jesus-is-lord.com, a fundamentalist Christian site
   that is adamantly opposed to abortion.

   Google confirmed on Wednesday that the sites had been removed from
   listings available at Google.fr and Google.de. The removed sites
   continue to appear in listings on the main Google.com site.

   The Harvard report, prepared by law student Ben Edelman and
   assistant professor Jonathan Zittrain and scheduled to be released
   Thursday, is the result of automated testing of Google's massive
   2.5 billion-page index and comparing the results returned by
   different foreign-language versions. The duo found 113 excluded
   sites, most with racial overtones.

   "To avoid legal liability, we remove sites from Google.de search
   results pages that may conflict with German law," said Google
   spokesman Nate Tyler. He indicated that each of the sites that were
   delisted came after a specific complaint from a foreign government.

   [...]



----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing
list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this
notice. To subscribe to Politech:
http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is
archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs
are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Like Politech? Make a donation here:
http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles:
http://news.search.com/search?q=declan
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---

------- End of forwarded message -------


-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: debate-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: debate-help@lists.fitug.de