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Google Not Reciprocating On IFrame Usage?
theodp writes "Over at the Google Web Search Community, posters are questioning why Google feels free to IFrame others' web pages, yet blocks attempts to IFrame pages on its own sites. 'Google has so much contradiction in what it wants for itself and what it does with other websites [e.g., Google frames Slashdot],' quipped one poster. 'Do no evil, right?' And over at the Google Maps Help Forum, developers are also begging for Google to allow them to IFrame entire pages again. 'I know there are other options (&embed etc.),' explains a poster, 'but then there is no sidebar which is useless. I really need the functionality like it was before.' Can any Googlers out there explain The Mystery of 'This content cannot be displayed in a frame'?"
The summary seems to imply that Google has "magical powers" which enable it to block displaying its pages in IFrames, which no one else has?
Really? I never saw the term "magical powers" anywhere in the summary, nor was it implied in any way. What was implied, and in fact outright stated, is that Google is being hypocritical. They are doing to others what they disallow being done to them.
The reality, AFAICT, is that everyone could block Google from displaying their pages in that way, also. They largely just don't (either want, bother or know how to do it), but I fail to see how that makes Google "evil".
They are taking without giving in kind. The whole "evil" thing is stupid to begin with, but if you're going to use a term like that so loosely (like Google does, so fuck them, they deserve it right back), then this is a good example of just that.