News.com needs to be polite, just like everybody else Freitag, 12. August 2005, 15:37:55
In its article Google: An Apology, ZDNet UK sneers writes about Google's decision not to give news.com any interviews for one year:
Acting under the mistaken impression that Google's search engine was intended to help research public data, we have in the past enthusiastically abused the system to conduct exactly the kind of journalism that Google finds so objectionable.
Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern. We apologise unreservedly, and will cooperate fully in helping Google change people's perceptions of its role just as soon as it feels capable of communicating to us how it wishes that role to be seen.
Hahaha. Very funny. NOT.
This is not about research
, this is about responsible journalism and just plain old common courtesy
Yes, a lot of information is avaiable on the WWW. For example, a WHOIS search reveals the name, address, telephone number and other details of just about every single domain name holder.
But you don't post that information in a public forum to supposedly inform the public about how publicly available that information is. It's just not done.
Could the author of this article publish his details, place of birth, sexual frustrations and the possible availability of his mom for dating on top of this article as well?
Single out yourself, if you want to put someone into the spotlights. There's a good sport. What CNet did was to play foul, IMO.