Google to Destroy all Information it Can't Index...

...or so says the Onion.  Fantastic piece, as usual... 

Reminds me of the hysterical and now infamous piece the Onion wrote back in 1998 about Microsoft patenting ones and zeros that was sent around the Web by those that hadn't yet heard of the Onion and thought it was real. 

So Google is becoming the new bad guy.  And what is interesting is that there is actually some truth to the Onion's piece.  Although Google may not literally be destroying information, if someone can't get to the information then isn't it the same as if it had been destroyed?  The search engines can exert a tremendous amount of control over what exists and what doesn't because they are now the primary way information is accessed.  The situation in China is a good example -- in order to be allowed in China's huge (and thus apparently necessary market), Google and Yahoo bowed to China's wishes and limited certain words from their search results.  China viewed Google's ability to instantly access information as dangerous to the state and thus they forced the search engine to limit access to certain information; effectively "destroying" it -- in my mind, every bit as bad as burning books.

Competition between the major search engines will continue to be critical to prevent unfortunate situations like the one above from becoming more widespread.  Hopefully it will force open access to prevail...