![The New York Times](../../std/masthead/nyt.gif) April 13, 2004
Google Says It
Doesn't Plan to Change Search Results By LAURIE J. FLYNN SAN FRANCISCO, April 12 - Google
Inc., the leading Internet search engine, said
Monday that it had no plans to alter its search
results despite complaints that the first listing
on a search for the word "Jew" directs people to an
anti-Semitic Web site. The dispute points to one of the most difficult
challenges that has plagued Web search engines:
what to do when the results of a search are
offensive to some, but legal? In this case, the first listed site on a search
for "Jew" is "Jewwatch.com,"
which promotes itself as "Keeping a close watch on
Jewish communities and organizations worldwide" and
offering references to anti-Semitic research,
documents and organizations. A Web site calling itself "Remove JewWatch.com
from the Google search engine!" is circulating a
petition asking Google to remove the site from its
listings. Google search results rely on a complex
set of algorithms that ranks sites based on the
number and quality of the links to them. The company, which is
based in Mountain View, Calif., said it had no
plans to remove the site from the search results
list because it trusts its automated program to
rank Web sites accurately. The search engine has
been listing "Jewwatch.com" as the first-ranked
site for three years. "We find this result offensive, but the
objectivity of our ranking function prevents us
from making any changes," said David Krane,
a spokesman for Google, adding that an exception is
made only in cases where a site is illegal. Mr.
Krane said the company has, for example, removed
sites from its rankings that promote pedophilia,
which is illegal. For example, until February 2003, a user
searching for a guide to the English city of
Chester would have been presented with "Chester's
guide to molesting young girls" as the second
entry. After officials from Chester complained,
Google removed the site. But offensive material is often a matter of
opinion, not legality. Conduct a search on Google
for "George W. Bush," for example, and the
fifth and sixth sites are critical of the
president. Because Google's search results are determined
in part by the number of links to a given page, as
well as the number of times the search term appears
near a link, even sites criticizing the "Jewwatch"
site may be contributing to its high-ranking simply
by linking to it. The top Google ranking for
Jewwatch.com was discovered recently by a Google
user, Steven Weinstock, who began the
petition drive to force Google to remove the site
from its listings. In a letter posted on its Web site on March 30,
the Anti-Defamation
League explained that the ranking is "in no way
a conscious choice by Google," but rather the
result of an automated system. "The longevity of ownership, the way articles
are posted to it, the links to and from the site,
and the structure of the site itself all increase
the ranking of 'Jewwatch' within the Google
formula," the letter said. Over the years, some Web site developers have
learned to manipulate the automated system by
building links to make a site appear even more
popular than it may be. And some commercial Web
site developers have become quite adept at using
this practice to raise the ranking of their
businesses. Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine
Watch, a newsletter based in Darien, Conn., said
Google was in a difficult position because it
cannot be seen as treating material differently
because it is offensive. "Google would certainly come under fire if they
were to choose to change it," Mr. Sullivan
said.![](../../std/dings/square.gif) Copyright 2004 The
New York Times Company
![](../../std/dings/related_250.gif)
Three
cheers Organised
attempts by furious Jews around the world to
bomb "enemy" website off Google's top ranking:
Google refuses to come to their
aid | More
on
this story
Charleston
Post and Courier article
Jewish
Journal of Greater Los Angeles
story
CNET
News article
Controversy over Google
search-engine grows: Harvard
experts on Web censorship detect that Google
engine, bowing to German and French pressure,
suppresses sites (including
ours)
| Who
hijacked it? | Who
writes the offensive "category" notes? | See
too Google
Watch | Jamie
McCarthy's role | Who
hijacked ...
(continued) |
"C"
discovers another odd thing about it |
The
Memory Hole: Google engine has sanitised the
David Shayler website
[more on Google's
Web-fixing] | More
on The Google Gods
| Google.de
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So
much for First Amendment: As the traditional
enemies slowly throttle free speech, report
shows Internet filtering now in 43% of US public
libraries
(thank God for the home
computer)
Websites
become dependent on Google search
engine
White
House Alters Website To Block Google
Archives
The
two brains behind Google
Lynda
Mortl has been investigating library censorship
of websites
Robert
Fisk identifies US missile that killed 62 Arabs,
by using Google
Censorship
of revisionism - at €1,100,000 (over
$1million) the largest budget item in Euro
Internet ![](../../std/dings/extlink.gif)
Europe
to criminalize Internet "hate speech" including
hyperlinks to offensive pages
Google.de
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Canadian
Jewish newspapers warned that revisionists have
seized the Internet high ground, called for more
police censorship
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