Slashdot has a summary of a recent event: Belgian Newspapers Delisted On Google:
(1) Belgian courts ordered Google to remove the Belgian newspapers from Google News (one service of Google), because the newspapers alleged that Google was effectively plagiarizing their content.
(2) Google responded by removing all traces of the Belgian newspapers–not just from Google News, but from every Google service, including searches.
(3) Now, the papers are crying foul because they are no longer getting the search traffic from Google (which can be quite substantial).
Who needs who more? Clearly, Google doesn’t need the Belgian newspapers. I’m not sure a court could force Google to put the newspapers back in the search index (it is not, after all, a public utility). So the bottom line is: if you don’t like what Google does, you still might think twice about contesting it–because you might just get cut off from connectivity and search.
In a world awash in information, the true information censors are those who control access to search. If you are visible in a search engine (mainly, if you are visible in Google or have significant word of mouth on a social network), then your message will get out. If you are blocked from these, you might as well be invisible or censored.
For an entity that needs traffic to sell advertising dollars, this can be a substantial blow.
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