hum, ah... what?

[Esopo]

---
A parental advice Internet site (KinderStart) has sued Google Inc., charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.
(...)
The complaint accuses Google, as the dominant provider of Web searches, of violating KinderStart's constitutional right to free speech by blocking search engine results showing Web site content and other communications.
---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060319/wr_nm/tech_google_lawsuit_dc

What the hell?
Is this even within reason?
Free speech?
So, if I don't like you and won't show you in my search results then I am violating your constitutional right of me having to like you? I guess I missed that part of the constitution.
I would like to think that freedom of speech means I can talk about you and then stop talking about you if I feel like it.

[COBOLdinosaur]

In America the number one right is the right to sue whether you have a case or not.  This would be the same as uing the library for not giving you book good placement.  Or suing a newpaper for putting coverage or you company picnic on page 5 instead of page one.

Web sites do not pay Google anything.  They do not have any contract with them.  Google has a right to make a decision on what content they will have on their site.  They have a right to set the rules for how sites must act to be included and teh have a right to ignore the pages of any who violate the rules.  

They did not whine when they were making millions in ad revenue at teh expense of other sites that were relegated to lower rankings because of the rules.  

It is the kind of nonsense lawsuit tha make U.S. law look like comes straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Cd&

[coral1]

Well, if this goes the way some of the other stupid lawsuits have gone.... Google, we will miss you.  :(

[Daydreams]

They did not whine when they were making millions in ad revenue at teh expense of other sites that were relegated to lower rankings because of the rules.  

Ha! This is true! Besides, Google is a private enterprise. It's not a public or governmental agency; it has no obligation to anyone for it's free services.

[nicholassolutions]

I'd love to come back with some smartmouthed response to Roy's comment about how silly our civil justice system is....but I can't. You hear about something absolutely rediculous almost every day it seems. This certainly ranks up there with some of the most absurd crap I have ever heard, though, and I expect that in the end the judge to tell the plaintiff's lawyer not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out. Or even better:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0306061billy1.html

But it would be better if judges didn't waste their time on games like this (and if you and I didn't have to pay for it). Hopefully Google will counter-sue LOL. Poor Google - everyone seems to be after them in court these days.