KinderStart Takes Google to Court
In yet another Google legal skirmish, parental link directory KinderStart.com has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court of San Jose saying that the online giant violated their free speech rights by blacklisting them a year ago and causing a 70% drop in traffic. The formula Google uses to rank sites is a closely guarded trade secret, and they modify it regularly to root out link farms, spamdexes, and other websites that abuse the system. KinderStart claims that by blacklisting certain web pages, Google is practicing unfair trade practices.
According to the complaint, “This Blockage is contrary to Google’s publicly sworn statements regarding its objectivity and free availability of ‘relevant information.’ Furthermore, each and every one of these Websites, including that of Plaintiff [KinderStart], are entitled to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech in a open, publicly accessible forum and their right to compete fairly in cyberspace, free of oppressive conduct and practices of a monopolist in these markets. Defendant Google singularly occupies and exploits this role.”
If they can get others on board, KinderStart wants to start a class-action suit. The complaint mentions that KinderStart runs Google AdSense ads, but makes no mention about Google’s openly published Webmaster Guidelines. Google has not yet released a public statement about the suit.
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