Every now and then the debate about search engines manually removing or tweaking search results due to the topic being sensitive in nature. The last one we had, that I blogged on was Hate Sites Ranks # 1 for "Jew" which Google would not do anything about, besides for placing a Google Ad at the top with an explanation that is still running today.
This week, an article from Guardian Unlimited named Clampdown on chatrooms after two strangers die in first internet death pact reads;
Talks are taking place with a number of service providers, including Yahoo! and AOL, and search engine companies, in an attempt to reprioritise the results that are thrown up during a trawl on the internet. "When somebody keys in 'suicide' and 'UK', we would like them to be offered a link to the Samaritans long before they find a website showing them what they can do with a car exhaust and a hosepipe," one official said.
Of course, something like this makes its way to the search forums and blogs. The discussion is pretty interesting, join the discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums and ThreadWatch.
