Google appears to be censoring climate emails searches

Officially Google, but unofficially probably just some global warming believing oik in Google's search engine room.

I agree with this poster. I hadn't noticed it until someone else posted a warning on WattsUp, but try it yourself.

If you start typing the word climate in Google, for the past weeks it has thrown up emails or change as the next words because of the huge volume of web traffic on the leaked emails. However, I just tried it and although the search box remembered my own previous search, the word emails is no longer offered by Google itself.

Here's a screen capture from a few moments ago. You can see the cookie has remembered my own search for "Climategate", but that even after spelling most of the word the closest Google offers me from its own engine is Climate Guatemala:

Given the power of Google to restrict access to information in such an insidious way, it actually begs for a formal investigation. It's the weekend but I will flick a media inquiry to Google HQ and see if they can explain and rectify.

Wikipedia has already fallen victim, with its climate change entries largely controlled by members of the website RealClimate, who've become badly entangled in the CRU emails trainwreck.

For those suspecting conspiracy regarding Google, there is fodder for your suspicions according to a comment on the linked post:

http://www.algore.com/about.html
a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/10/15/al-gore-advised-google-about-its-search-quality
Al Gore Advised Google About 'Search Quality'

Comments

[Jan]

Normally I'm a big supporter of Google. Unfortunately in this instance Bing.com shows up 'ClimateGate' as a results right on typing "climateg".
Hopefully Google wakes up and smells before they swap ethical positions with Microsoft

[Lucia Maria]

Wow. I've been searches on climategate too, and the way Google is doing that drop down thingie has definitely changed.

That's just so blatant!

[Bamm Bamm]

Google suxs again!

Not as much as the green party Jeanette Fitzsimons, who has failed to return a response to a letter on the hacked CRU emails, and questions on the Green Parties Policies.

So much for official responses from Elected representatives from Parliament.

GreenWash!

[peter]

I keyed in "climategate" as string into google and there were thousands of hits.

Here is a cut from the screen that shows 5000 and more (see bottom line):

Socialists in a Panic Over climategate…to Pass UN Climate Treaty
Dakota Voice - Bob Ellis - ‎11 hours ago‎
But that was before the climategate release of emails from a key global warming group in Britain which showed global warming fanatics talking to one another ...
Nets Ignore Climategate While FNC & CNN Report, CNN Dismisses Relevance NewsBusters (blog)
As 'climategate' unfolds, scientists warn that climate change is moving faster ... OregonLive.com
On to Copenhagen for Obama and a climate conference with no real agenda American Thinker
Atlantic Online (blog) - FTO (blog)
all 5,058 news articles

[Lucia Maria]

Yes, Peter. There are thousands of hits. What Ian is talking about, however, is the drop down prompt that comes up as you type in the beginning of "climategate". Climategate is no longer an option to choose from.

[Falafulu Fisi]

Ian, I support your efforts in exposing all these climate data fudging and stuff like that, but you're going a bit too far this time.

Remember that Google is a private company and they're not obliged not to censor anything at all. If you don't like their search rankings then go and use Microsoft Bing search engine, which is almost as good as Google. Leave Google alone.

I thought that you support property rights? Google is private property of its shareholders and they can do whatever they like with what is theirs.

[Falafulu Fisi]

Just to note that Page & Brin (Google founders) are greenies themselves. So, I wouldn't be surprised if they've ordered their engineers to do something like this and censor certain search terms.

[Ian Wishart]

FF, I'm not denying Google's property rights, which of course I recognise. But concommitant with that I have the right to publicise the dodginess of what they're doing.

It keeps the market informed. When I wrote the post above I was thinking of Google's dominance and hadn't factored Bing in, so yeah, maybe no investigation but the public, now informed, can vote with their feet.

[lloyd jones]

The real sign of something underhand happening at Google HQ will come when the top search results for "climategate" start returning links to RC and other such pro blogs.

[anon]

Cheers Ian. I've now replaced Google in my searchbar with Bing - it finds all the climategate stuff instantly.

[Bamm Bamm]

Can someone please provide me a list or breakdown on the following areas:

Funding:

Which NZ Universities and CRIs have received government and private monies for climate research?

Which people were the benefactors of these monies, and what papers, conferences and publications have they made?

Do any of these people sit on Review Panels for funding projects of Public Monies in New Zealand - and are any of them now sitting on panels making decisions presently?

[cbullitt]

Hope you guys are getting some good traffic out of this. I linked you, but some of the bigger dogs just took the post for themselves. It's taken off.
On average, even when you type in the whole thing Google is noting about 1/5 as many inquiries as Bing.
Thanks again.

[peter]

Ian

Are you really accusing ANOTHER organisation of bias?

Do you accept that it takes one to know one?

[Joe]

HERE IS ABSOLUTE UNDENIABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF:
http://i48.tinypic.com/2qjhms6.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/2qjhms6.jpg

[Lars Dane]

The owners of Google are often mentioned as top celebrity warmistas - even as they jet around the world to warmista meetings in their private large Boeing airliner. Maybe we should connect the dots.

[ZenTiger]

Peter, you may not have had a chance to read Ian's post before commenting.

To help you out, Lucia explained the first obvious thing you didn't read and I'll help out with the second:

Officially Google, but unofficially probably just some global warming believing oik in Google's search engine room.

(in reply to your comment: Are you really accusing ANOTHER organisation of bias?

Ian points out a very curious anomaly in Google's search engine's predictive search aid. A fair observation under the circumstances.

I wonder what the reason might be.

[scrubone]

Not seeing this myself - climate gate comes first choice for me if I type "climate".

I suspect there is an innocent explanation - you've typed it before so it removes that from the "suggested" list.

[Ken]

My search for climategate produced 13,300,000 results.

Typical distortion from Wishart - what about a press release, Ian?

[Bamm Bamm]

By the time you typed your letters in - it would have been resolved.

A fair observation results in a perceived temporal bias later on.

Nothing more complicated - other than individuals response to it when they don't recognise it.

[Ian Wishart]

It's alright Ken, your reputation as a buffoon is not threatened in any way by your latest comment.

I was not talking about the search "results",but about Google's autosuggestion assistant.

For most of last week, Google sensed "climategate" ad offered it as a suggestion. Then suddenly it vanished from the list, which has now been well documented worldwide as the story spread.

And Scrub, I've already checked on other phrases I've searched before, and they still appear in autosuggest regardless.