Google and nasty pages
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P: Here on p2pnet, we’re considerably more than casually interested in online ( or offline, come to that) freedom of speech, so we were in intrigued by the question below:
Can Google chop a crazy person’s page if the page is saying something really nasty about you (or whatever)?
It’s the bottom line in a post on the Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO blog, from whence came the pic on the right.
“I’ve responded to this so many times that I thought I’d write up a complete response,” says Matt, so, “Now when people ask me some form of this question, I can just point them to this blog post.”
Not incidentally, he works for Google’s Search Quality group, says the Wikipedia.
So here’s what he’d, “normally send back” »»»
Unfortunately there’s not much I can do. The page you pointed out is not spam, and pretty much the only removals (at least in the U.S., which is what I know about) that we do for legal reasons are if a court orders us. We typically say that if person A doesn’t like a webpage B, only removing page B out of Google’s search results doesn’t do any good because webpage B is still there (e.g. it can be found by going to it directly or through other search engines). In that sense, the presence of that page in Google’s index is just reflecting the fact that the page exists on the wider web.
The best actions for you from our perspective can be one of a couple options. Either contact whoever put up webpage B and convince them to modify or to take the page down. Or if the page is doing something against the law, get a court to agree with you and force webpage B to be removed or changed. We really don’t want to be taking sides in a he-said/she-said dispute, so that’s why we typically say “Get the page fixed, changed, or removed on the web and then Google will update our index with those changes the next time that we crawl that page.” Our policies outside the U.S. might be different; I’m not as familiar with how legal stuff works outside the U.S.
“People usually aren’t happy to hear that reply, but I hope they can understand the reasoning behind it,” he adds.
Now you know. 
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO – Why Google won’t remove that page you don’t like, March 3, 2009
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March 4th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
So, in this scenario, Google gets to say it like it is: Google can’t be responsible indexing content that is still “out there”.
Yet, when the same point is brought out in regards to TPB, it gets scoffed at.
Google also gets to say “if the one who puts out the page is doing something against the law, get a court to agree with you and force the webpage to be removed or changed.” Wasn’t there a statement by the RIAA during the PB trial that Google is “cooperating” and removing infringing content from its index?!
Why don’t contradictions like these just ssscrreeeeeam at judges??
March 4th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
“Why don’t contradictions like these just ssscrreeeeeam at judges??”
Because they are part of a well-oiled machine that doesn’t care about justice. If it did, it wouldn’t tolerate the stalling and bully-boy tactics that are shown by the pigopolist’s money-spooging law teams.
A system where you are unable to represent yourself because the terms being used are of a “legal nature” is elitist and is no longer relevant in this modern age.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
@ DA:
Presactly.
Cheers!
March 4th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
@ all…
I already knew the answer, of course.
I just put the question up there, because I think others should ask it to the right people.
; )
March 4th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice to start a country with a representative government, where elected officials are elected by popular vote only, are not allowed to violate the constitution, and judges cared about the good of the people, not whatever it is they care about right now? Of course, it’s just a dream. No land left to start a country in. But it’d be a great place to live.
Every time I think about our government, and how screwed up it is to allow judges to ignore this sort of contradiction, I think “when will the revolution start?”. I’m not in favor of fanatical actions, but I wish it were possible to get enough people to vote together to get some of this crap outlawed.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
@Jakykong:
Yup. When you already know the deck is stacked, there’s very little incentive to play the game.
: (