Google Blacklists CNet Reporters

An anonymous reader writes "Cnet News.com is reporting that Google is no longer talking to Cnet reporters. In an article about the search company looking for new executive chefs, the article states: 'Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.' Apparently, Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included. The information was obtained from Google searches."

Comments

I'm not feeling sorry

[stinerman]

Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included.

You put it on the Internet and its fair game.

Of course, there is a lot of our information on the Internet that we didn't put there, which is why we need better laws regarding dissemination of personal information.

How is this "censorship"?

[Percent Man]

Okay, we all enjoy the self-righteous feeling of anger we get when we see the little man with his mouth taped over. But this doesn't qualify as "censorship" - it's a business decision taken by a publicly-held company, not Big Brother cracking down on what you can or cannot say.

The government telling you you're not allowed to say certain things, under penalty of law: censorship.
A company deciding it's not going to do business with another (in this case, a press) company: not censorship.

Re:How is this "censorship"?

[aeoo]

In reality we are governed far more by economical considerations than by political considerations. It stands to reason that to the extent that economy governs our lives, it should be democratized.

Considering that the government is slowly moving into irrelevance and that the coprs are fast becoming like local kings and dukes, the actions they make become less and less like those of private individuals and more and more like those of governments (and I am including monarchy and fascism as types of government).

So, it's not a big stretch to call "censorship" what some corps do with the information. This is particularly true of news media.

It's not Google's fault information is available

[Halo-]

I have to say I side with Google on this one. Google simply indexes information. It's not possible (or desirable) for them to filter and screen the content of what they index.

Yes, you can use Google to track down a distressing amount of personal information about some people, but this is a function of the information being made available by third parties. Google just makes it easier to find all these sources quickly.

People that gripe about (or sue) Google based on their indexing "bad" things, need to step back and think of the Web as more of a library, with each page as a book. Google serves as a card catalog, helping you find the books that have the information you are interested in. If somebody goes to the library and looks up a bunch of personal information on you (which is possible, just slower) you don't get mad at the makers of the card catalog. Your anger should be directed first at the person who singled you out. Next, if the books contain something which shouldn't be public (unlike major stock sales, and other things from the article, which should be public) you ought to take it up with the author/publisher of the books.

cNet took a cheap shot at Google, and did it in a fairly childish way. The point they were trying to make is both obvious, and better made in a more mature fashion. That being said, I don't exactly think Google's response is "mature", but if they want to respond in kind, I don't blame them.

Read the linked article, and...

[suzerain]

...uh...they didn't really list anything 'personal' about the CEO at all. He lives somewhere, he makes money, he attended a political fundraiser. None of that is particularly private information, unless my expectations of 'privacy' are really skewed.

So, I guess Google is really being the asshole here.

The thing that the article is pointing out -- rightly -- is that Google appears to be on the road toward becoming a major information clearinghouse. And the information is, rather than most similar things, information about everything. They have manifested a desire to aggregate this knowledge and use it in certain ways (i.e., targeted ads by reading the content of your email), and for now they are behaving as a 'good netizen'.

The thing is, as soon as these two idealistic PhD guys get fed up and cash in and decide to buy an island in the South Pacific and go live there, I fear that so will go Google's ethos of being the good guy, and the marketing weasels and fucking lawyers schmucks will pervert Google amazing technology to do some Seriously Evil Shit (tm).

It's really just a matter of time...