Last month, CNET posted a highly speculative (and largely unfounded) article about Google. In response, Google will not respond to questioning by CNET for a year. CNET has now started posting the following excerpt in EVERY article and blogroll entry it publishes.
Google representatives in the U.S. have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.
I posted the following reply to one of the articles on CNET. Chances are, it will be removed from the website. They are pretty strict on which comments they allow versus censoring. Pretty hypocritical for a website that seems to be screaming “free speech!”
Is it really necessary to mention this situation every time CNET posts a story about Google? It speaks poorly of CNET, as it shows a lack of civilized discourse. When you post an article critically criticizing and outlining a company’s business strategies, there’s a good chance they will not respond by sending fruit baskets and warm words. Instead, Google chose the high road by quietly resigning to not offer any additional information to CNET for a year, rather than overly criticizing CNET’s policies.
Note: In the original quote, a link to the previous story that offended Google was provided. I have removed it, because I believe CNET is being severely childish in their reoccurring decision to link that article.
EDIT (8/23/2005): I always find it funny when people reply anonymously to my weblog. It speaks volumes of them. Why voice an opinion and then leave no room to reply? Why call me an idiot and then be afraid that I might invalidate your argument?
Also, insignificant arguments are logical fallacies. Learn how to debate.