[adambarber]

More to the point, what's stopping Google from declaring war on the MPAA? I imagine a lot of money would be lost if Google just pulled every site belonging to a member of the MPAA from the search results.

Aside from a few people at the top of Google with a sense of restraint and fair play, if Google alone decided to ruin the movie industry, they could - quickly. Obviously an IIAA pays more respect to the current way of doing things, rather than just making a unilateral decree that the movie industry doesn't get to exist anymore if they won't extend the same courtesy to the tech industry.

Slightly less drastically, I wouldn't mind Google making a note in the SERPs about which members of Congress are in favor of censoring freedom of speech. A small note with that person's position on SOPA would be a handy tool to keep the public informed.

[zecho]

What's stopping Google is reasonable principals. They shouldn't censor the Internet, because that's stupid and against everything the blackout stood for. Where they can fight is in competing with Hollywood dollar for dollar by lobbying and funding campaigns.

[adambarber]

I agree that being reasonable is the reasonable thing to do. However, censorship cuts both ways, which I was trying to demonstrate with my earlier comment.

If playing the lobbying game works, then no reason not to play.

[ojbyrne]

s/principals/principles/

[zecho]

thanks.

[snprbob86]

> what's stopping Google from declaring war on the MPAA

Google bends over backwards to make sure that their rankings are entirely algorithmic so that they can retain the moral high-ground and various legal protections. It would be insane for Google to jeopardize either of those things or to risk anti-competitive and anti-trust prosecution.

[pgeorgi]

So instead, it's time for googlebombing the sites out of the index? Might make more of an impact (longer-lasting, too) than the OpMegaupload DDoS.

Google can keep its moral highground, and the delisting is "for the people, by the people" ;-)

[anamax]

> Google bends over backwards to make sure that their rankings are entirely algorithmic so that they can retain the moral high-ground and various legal protections.

Do you really think that algorithms are necessarily neutral? (Hint: they're not. Consider a "hate speech" detector. It's easy to implement bias using "neutral" algorithms with "reasonable" decisions.)

[ericflo]

Google should never censor its search results. It would lose a lot of credibility if it did. However, perhaps it might choose not to sell ads to organizations that threaten the internet.