What do you think about this case? Do you think someone in the UN contacted Google to get this guy "out" of the net? I think is a fair suspicion.
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NEW YORK - How big do you have to be to earn the wrath of the United Nations and Internet giant Google? If you're journalist Matthew Lee, all it takes are some critical articles and a scrappy little Web site. Lee is the editor-in-chief, Webmaster and pretty much the only reporter for Inner City Press, a pint-sized Internet news operation that's taken on Goliath-sized entities like Citigroup since 1987. Since 2005, he's been focusing almost entirely on stories that deal with internal corruption inside the U.N., posting several stores online almost daily. He's been especially interested in the inner workings of what could be called the practical-applications arm of the international organization, the United Nations Development Programme. Many of Lee's stories were featured prominently whenever Web users looked for news about the U.N. using the powerful Google News search engine, a vital way for media outlets both large and small to get their articles read. But beginning Feb. 13, Google News users could no longer find new stories from the Inner City Press. "I think they said, 'If we can't get this guy out of the U.N., let's disappear him from the Internet,'" Lee said. It began with an innocuous-sounding yet chilling form letter from Google to Lee, e-mailed on Feb. 8: "We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users," it said. "When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News... |
Google reads FoxNews! They reinstated the guy immediately:
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NEW YORK - Google News quietly reinstated Tuesday the articles of a news service that routinely exposes U.N. corruption, a day after FOXNews.com ran a story about the Internet giant's decision to remove Inner City Press from its search engine. Inner City Press returned to the Google News search late in the day, but much sooner than the "couple weeks" a Google representative had promised. The week of stories the news service ran since Google News dropped it on Feb. 13 were not restored. The news outlet, run by journalist Matthew Lee, has been critical of the U.N. and internal corruption within the organization. Lee was informed that Google News would drop his organization in a Feb. 8 e-mail.... |