www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45661
Google knows how easy i t is to collect information on virtually any subject, but the company is apparently not happy about being "Googled" by a reporter getting inform ation about a company executive.
According to the New York Times, David Krane, Google's director of public relations, called CNET editors to complain once it published the facts. "Our view is what we published was all public information, and we actu ally used their own product to find it." Singh said Krane called back to say Google would not speak to any reporte r from CNET for an entire year. "You can put us down for a 'no comment,'" he stated in an instant-message interview. "Sometimes a company is ticked off and won't talk to a reporter for a bit ," Singh said, "but I've never seen a company not talk to a whole news o rganization."
The incident is echoing throughout the tech world on the Internet. Jason Stamper, editor of Computer Business Review, notes, "Blackballing j ournalists is not big and is not clever. I hope I don't have to explain why a free technology press is important to such a forward-looking compa ny as Google. But perhaps given the fact that it was Playboy that Google granted its exclusive pre-IPO interview to, they do seem to have a slig htly odd view of the people they will, and will not talk to."
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