12/2    Wow.  That's pretty sad:
        http://www.google.com/explanation.html
        \_ uh, what's sad about it?  -tom
           \_ Oh, just that the number of offensive results returned by "Jew"
              is so high that they felt compelled to write that.  Sad.
              I thought.
              \_ Why is this surprising?  Look at motd.
        \_ Google: Cataloging the world's filth.
           \_ At least they're consistent about the "let's make all
              information easily available" no matter if it's libelous,
              owned by someone else or just the sort of thing no one
              should need to see, as long as they make a buck on it.
                \_ How is google making a buck on this?
                \_ (a) "libelous" differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,
                   and I thought it was a given that national restrictions
                   on who links to what online are silly, (b) "make a buck
                   on it" is not a bad thing, but for some reason it has a
                   negative connotation--not making a buck == no google, (c)
                   who judges what "no one should need to see"?  -John
                   \_ a) in the dictionary sense, b) making a buck spreading
                      lies is, c) germany has banned nazi stuff, are you
                      opposed to that?  unrelated is google's answer to a
                      faq on image and link hosting for people who want an
                      image pulled down: they duck the issue of removing it
                      from their index and punt it to the user to go ask
                      the webmaster to remove it when in many cases the
                      webmaster has posted something maliciously or just
                      doesn't care what their users post and isn't subject
                      to the reach of the law.  double talk is just sleazy.
                      as far as google existing or not, i dont really care.
                      there were search engines before, there will be search
                      engines after.  they're just one search engine of many
                      that all return roughly the same quality of results.
                      \_ I am ambivalent about Germany's nazi ban, as it's a
                         bit of a special case.  Nonetheless, Germany has no
                         control over content hosted abroad, nor do they make
                         any pretense at doing so (unlike France/Yahoo, which
                         was a pretty sad precedent.)  I don't think it's dis-
                         ingenuous for a search engine to refer objections
                         about content to the originating site--after all,
                         nobody is forcing anyone to look at something they
                         don't like--you may find it lame but I see it as
                         pretty central to the availability of information,
                         reprehensible though it may be, on the Internet.  In
                         their position I wouldn't even have posted the
                         disclaimer, although I can understand why they saw
                         it as a prudent thing to do.  -John
                         \_ Which means someone has zero recourse if google
                            is unwilling to provide a means to people to have
                            potentially damaging and false information
                            removed.  Below someone claims they remove links
                            to kiddie porn.  I'm firmly in favor of that but
                            why draw the line there?  I don't see why Germany's
                            ban on Nazi stuff is ok as a 'special case'.  As if
                            by out lawing references to the Nazis they will
                            magically make the past go away.  France/Yahoo is
                            pretty much the same.  Anyway, once you draw a line
                            there's no difference where yo draw it.  You don't
                            get to claim you're a big pro-information freedom
                            person when you've made an arbitrary decision that
                            there really is some information that shouldn't be
                            seen.  (sarcasm for the stupid): Why don't the
                            parents just complain to the kiddie porn web
                            masters and ask that their kids be removed from
                            the net?
                            \_ Yes, you do have zero recourse.  I'm unwilling
                               to risk someone seeing my (harmless) views as
                               somehow politically, religiously or culturally
                               offensive and have a means to censor them.  I
                               think we're fundamentally in agreement here--I
                               stated that I wouldn't have written the Google
                               disclaimer, just that I understand where they're
                               coming from.  As for Germany, they have a bit
                               of peculiar historical background that gives
                               them a slightly different take on the topic of
                               nazism, even though they sometimes do not handle
                               it consistently, that is all.  Relax.  -John
                               \_ You're ducking.  Google will remove some
                                  links from the index based on some unknown
                                  and arbitrary criteria but will not remove
                                  others and worse, pretends they can't.  If
                                  google was consistent and didn't pretend
                                  they have no control over their indexes
                                  instead of waving the "its magic! look!
                                  a shiny penny!" flag around they'd come
                                  across as honest instead of deceptive and
                                  shitty with a touch of holier-than-thou.
              \_ Actually I'm pretty sure they have people looking for
                 things like child porn and taking them out of the indexes.
                        \_ Well they do, and they admit it.