Publisher Whining Prompts Italian Investigation of Google 91
Complaints about "lack of transparency" from publishers have prompted Italian competition authorities to begin an investigation of Google's search and news services. I'm sure their motives are completely altruistic. "Because Google does not disclose the criteria for ranking news articles or search results, he said, newspapers are unable to hone their content to try to earn more revenue from online advertising. Ad revenue on the Web is directly proportional to the size of the audience, which is heavily influenced by search or Google News rankings."
Re:Epic Fail (Score:1, Interesting)
That movie-like situation is a thing of the past, it was history even before the first Godfather was shot. Now in Italy the Mafia IS the government, also thanks to that criminal named Berlusconi and his cohorts. They don't kill you physically anymore, rather, they slowly ruin your business, destroy your public image (if any) and credibility until you become completely irrelevant to them or kill yourself in the process.
Most people believe that having no Mafia related shootings here in Italy during the last years is a good thing. Unfortunately that's exactly the opposite. When the mafia doesn't shoot is a clear sign that they're healthy and can control the country by other means (corrupt politicians, newspapers and TV networks, etc.).
Each and every time somebody in Italy attacks the Internet (of course hiding their real motives behind terrorism, pedophilia, piracy, etc) they always are trying to silence the last sources of information exposing our corrupt government.