Google: On Second Thought, We Will Censor

Google used to crow that it didn't manipulate its search results to help advertisers, or censor its results in any way. But after Google has agreed to censor search results for its Chinese site, it has quietly pulled its Help page that says it does not censor search results. The Google Help page about censorship used to read:

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results."

But visit it now, and you get this page:

"Document Not Found

Sorry, the document you requested is not available. You can return to the refering page, or You can visit the main page."For now, the original Help page about censorship can be found in the Google cache.

There's not much to be said, other than Google should stop cooperating with the Chinese authoritarian censors. But money talks, and Google clearly listens to the sound of coins, not the voices of protest.