Journalist claims Google used strong-arm tactic to get story taken down

Why it matters to you

Google might be a tool we all need, but this story will naturally raise concerns about the firm’s scope and reach.

A journalist has come forward to protest the monopolistic power of Google in the online world, claiming that a few years ago she was silenced by the search giant. Supposedly, the Google gag forced the author to remove an article from the website she was working for because it was critical of Google’s actions.

Give3n how crucial some web services are to our lives, it’s becoming a matter of increasing concern that they’re all run by companies with their own agendas and goals. One of those is invariably making money, so it’s not too surprising when we occasionally see governments and regulatory bodies clamp down on some internet giants for anti-competitive or shady practices. In the case of Gizmodo writer Kashmir Hill, though, it was not the government, but Google that cracked down on her.

Back in 2011, Hill was writing for Forbes. That was during the era when Google+ was launched, and Google was keen to make it a major part of the web, encouraging websites to offer comment links on content as they do for Facebook and Reddit. Purportedly, Google staffers asserted, in no uncertain terms, that if sites like Forbes didn’t do that, their search engine rankings could suffer.

When Hill reported on this, pointing out the clear conflict of interest involved, Google wasn’t happy. In fact, she claims that the search giant demanded she take the story down. While Google didn’t claim it was fake news, it did state that the meeting had been confidential.

Hill claims that that wasn’t something she was aware of or had agreed to, nor had she signed any form of non-disclosure agreement. Oddly enough, she suggests that at that time, Forbes didn’t have a traditional editorial team, so the onus to take the article down, or indeed, to keep it up, was on her.

Under pressure from Forbes staff and Google, she took it down, something she still regrets to this day.

However, that wasn’t to be the end of the story. Cached versions of her report still existed after she removed the original story, but those copies quickly disappeared, too. Although it can only be speculation, it appeared that Google had removed those cached versions , or at least made them much harder to find.

While Google claims that it was Forbes that removed the story, Hill doubts the technical know how to do so existed at the site at that time, pointing out that more recently removed articles can still be found in search results.

This story comes to light as Google is in the spotlight again for possibly leaning on an organization to fire someone who was critical of the search giant. If confirmed, this would only raise additional questions about the overwhelming influence of some of the internet’s biggest corporations.