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Google Censorship Issue

Status

May 5, 2008 - An Open Letter to Senator Hillary Clinton was published to the Internet on April 30 - six days before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.  Within 36 hours the web pages carrying this letter had moved to the top or near the top of  the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines.    At this time all links to the source pages disappeared from the Google search returns.   This did not happen with Yahoo and MSN search returns.  PRG became concerned that an act of political censorship by Google had taken place and initiated an investigation of the matter.    See Press Release.

May 11, 2008 Update - After the primary election was over Google was contacted by a national reporter about the blocking issue and within 24 hours some related pages reappeared but not the PRG source page.  After Google was contacted a second time by the reporter the PRG source page with the Open Letter turned up on the Google listings for a few hours before disappearing once again.  This happened several times.  The PRG source page would be accessible by very strict search criteria, it would disappear for a day or two before reemerging again under strict search criteria.   On the other hand the PRG source page and other pages remained at or near the top of the Yahoo and MSN search returns for - Open Letter to Senator Hillary Clinton - which has been the case since May 1.  

Search algorithms are extremely complicated, but it is well known that page listings can be blocked using various methods.  Google's censorship policy statement indicates that a notice would appear in the case of a blocked page.  No such notice has appeared.

Fortunately, as of the evening of May 10 any restrictions on the PRG source page for the Open Letter were lifted.  The PRG source page has worked its way back to the top of the Google listings where it was on May 1, five days before the election, and the Open Letter is now appropriately represented on Google as it has been on Yahoo and MSN.   Nevertheless, PRG wants to speak with an attorney representative from the Google legal department so that it can be determined why this source page (and for a while other pages) was blocked, who authorized the block and how to resolve the matter in a fair and reasonable manner for both parties.

Until Google is forthcoming with a satisfactory explanation the specter is raised that a multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation used the #1 search engine in the world to manipulate search returns regarding a major issue impacting a leading presidential candidate leading into a do-or-die primary election.    If true, this would call into question the integrity of all Google search returns.

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