The entire affair, said to be "experimental" by Google News staff, is triggering so much consternation in the blogosphere that the end result will be if not one, then several complaints filed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The Google News Meta Tag program was created to establish one "canonical" URL for a thread of news articles and blog posts. In other words, the system asks the authors to favor the post where the news "originated" from. But in implementing the system last week, Google's machines removed a very large number - perhaps over 100 - blogs from Google News, leaving legacy news sites like The New York Post or The Wall Street Journal.
The legal problem is that Google News action results in a surpression of a certain form of speech. That claim is not hyperbole.
First, Google News staff has sent emails pointing to the overall idea of "news quality" as being the reason for the actions taken. But the problem is websites that exhibit obvious use of writing approaches to gain traffic, specifically from Associated Content are allowed to remain on Google News, where small, independent blogs, which have better track records of non-abuse, are taken off Google News.
This happened to Zennie62.com, even though this blogger has taken great steps - even to blocking other Zennie62 bloggers from posting "illegal" blogs - to maintain quality blog posts. (The good news for Zennie62, is that the traffic impact has only been a negative 10 percent to 18 percent per day, from overall page view count data. That's far less than the 50 percent to 90 percent in other blog cases.)
Second, Google News staff's actions have resulted in an uncomfortably large number of Liberal Blogs being removed from Google News, like VF Daily, the blog of Vanity Fair, while Conservative Blogs, like Red State, curiously remain in place on Google News. The other blogs are "banished" to Google Blog Search level. Google Blog Search is not shown as a first-click option in Google search results.
In claiming "news quality" as the reason for the blog taken down action, Google News staff is harming free expression and overall diversity of opinions expressed, and flat out telling a lie as well. "News quality" is attacked whenever the person issuing the attack disagrees with the content of the blog that's being questioned. Rare is the case that a person will attack a blog who's content they agree with.
Google's other claim is that the blog post does not "add new information" to the news. But in that claim Google unknowingly shows its actions to be not legal, for blogs are and have been considered an "echo" chamber, where one idea is commonly repeated by other blogs (this is confirmed in a study called Blogs Are Echo Chambers). That's the reason the media refers to the "blogosphere's" take, be it the Liberal, Conservative, or Tech blogosphere. It's not the blog's role to necessarily create new news, but to reflect the overall speech Zeitgeist of the day.
That's why Google News staff is not telling the truth, and if it is, then what it's doing is not legal - Google can't win. That's why the entire Google News action is subject to legal review. It is unconstitutional purely because of the overall size of Google. But with that, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing will have to fall in line with what happens to Google in the wake of this skirmish.
Google's market share for search, estimated at 63 percent as of this writing, is such that Google News becomes the online "controller" of what is news for everyone because Google News results are prominently displayed on the front page of a search result.
What must happen is that the FCC and perhaps ultimately The Supreme Court, will have to step in and set a standard for the presentation of online news that does not harm free speech and represents the FCC's calls for diversity and openness online. Right now, Google's actions are destroying those objectives in practice.
What should Google do to right this wrong? It goes beyond just reinstating the blogs removed from Google News. This solution offered will open Google News to blogs and citizen journalists and give a much-needed and understood roadmap for the blogger to follow:
1) The Google News results should include a list of the latest keyword-relevant blog posts from Google Blog Search, and the top blog posts from that should be on the front of the search page. Of course, because of the constant addition and indexing of blog posts, the results will change frequently, much like those for Twitter on Google, but that's better than what exists today.
2) A clear set of instructions on how to redesign a blog for inclusion into Google News, must be posted and accessible via link from the results for Google News searches. Also, all blogspot.com blogs, owned by Google, should have a Newssite map code that can be installed. Currently, Google subordinates its own blogspot blogs, and does not tell users of Blogger how to upgrade their blog templates for better results in search or inclusion to Google News.
3) Google News staff must give takedown warnings one month before such actions are done, and explain what the problem is to the webmaster. That would eliminate the current appearance of favoritism and give the webmaster a chance to correct a problem, if it does exist.
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