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(Continued) The Rank for $ales Weekly Newsletter, Feb. 24, 2007. Page 18 Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 
Google gets slammed for doing the right thing!This piece of news grabbed the attention of many bloggers yesterday: "Google shuts down a blog after a death threat". A death threat is very serious business and should be dealt with swiftly by the proper authorities! The reason I'm using this story today as my closing note is simply because I've seen a big uproar from various bloggers all over the world that suggests Google acted too fast in pulling the plug on that blog, and that it may have prevented freedom of speech by doing so. I don't agree with that. Read the story -- Hosted on Google's free Blogger.com site, a Web log (blog) that was shut down by the search giant after its author posted a death threat against a New Zealand politician can still be reached using Google's own search engine. The blog in question, CyfSwatch, was closed down Feb. 22 after weeks of complaints by New Zealand authorities and a few politicians. It was operated by critics of the country's government-run CYF (Child Youth and Family) service which is responsible for removing children from homes for care and protection.  The blog encouraged various readers to post messages containing personal information about individual social workers. However, an Internet search using the name of the deleted blog reveals archived "caches" of the site that have been preserved by Google. What's more, all the damaging posts can be easily accessed from the cache. Google describes its cache as "the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the Web on that specific day". It is commonly used to uncover deleted websites and pages. Additionally, and to make matters even worse, the offending bloggers have started-up a new version of their blog on a non-Google platform. Last month, the Ministry of Social Development, which runs the agency, called in police amid fears the Web site was putting some of its staff at risk and an official complaint was logged at Google. Following the complaint, Google censored postings on the site but still allowed the blog to operate, which was created on Google's free blogging platform. But that situation drastically changed yesterday after the site posted blogs threatening the life of a specific politician. With New Zealand's so-called anti-smacking bill, which would make it an offence for parents to strike their own children, going before parliament yesterday, postings to the site were critical of Green MP Sue Bradford who introduced that bill. My take on this Well yes, because if you read Google's Blogger.com ToS (Terms of Service) it categorically states: "We reserve the right to shut down blogs that have repeat violations, and here we had a repeat violation issue," Grand said. "We really try to remove as little content as possible. We don't want to be a mediator of content and we believe blogs are a platform for free expression and we do everything we can to work with bloggers to keep the content up," she said. So there you have it. Users simply need to respect and adhere to a provider's Terms of Service, whether it's a free service or not. Sounds fair to me, so I really don't know what was all the fuss about in the blogging community. Am I missing something here? Well, that's it for this week. Have a pleasant and relaxing weekend, I will see you all next Saturday! Serge Thibodeau, Please note that I am available for SEO consultative work or to help you optimize your website for the major search engines. Feel free to contact me for an honest and fair assessment. Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various authors on this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the companies mentioned on any of these pages.  All logos, trade marks and service marks on this newsletter are the exclusive property of their respective owners. Note: Although I always try my best to answer each individual question that I receive, there are times when it's just impossible for me to answer every one I get, as the amount of emails sent to me keeps increasing all the time. Also, please note that, for confidentiality reasons, the names of people writing to us are never disclosed. Please send all your questions, comments or general enquiries to: questions@rankforsales.com Subscribe to the free Rank for Sales Weekly Newsletter <<< Previous page Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  Bookmark the RFS Newsletter by simply clicking here. Search engine industry news corner:  About Rank for $ales Rank for $ales can be reached via email at info@rankforsales.com or you can call from anywhere in the US or Canada, via our toll free number at 1-800-631-3221. Our offices are located near Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Visit our web site at www.rankforsales.com About Serge Thibodeau Pagina+™ is offered by Rank for $ale's parent company: GCIS Inc. Besides serving as editor and CEO of Rank for $ales, Serge Thibodeau currently writes professional search engine optimization articles in some of the following publications:
SEO Today (www.seotoday.com) Additionally, Serge Thibodeau has successfully developed and deployed Global Business Listing, a powerful and flexible 'paid inclusion' search engine that will further increase any company's rankings and visibility in the major search engines. On the Web, at: www.globalbusinesslisting.com Bookmark the Rank for $ales newsletter by simply clicking here. Legal Notice This newsletter is sponsored by Rank for Sales, a professional SEO firm in business since 1997. We suggest you bookmark our newsletter and place it in the list of your favorite websites by clicking here. Feel free to contact us if you need to have your website optimized by a professional SEO firm, or if you have any question on the subject of search engines. |
