KinderStart charges that Google without warning in March 2005 penalized the site in its search rankings, sparking a “cataclysmic” 70 percent fall in its audience — and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.
At its height, KinderStart counted 10 million page views per month, the lawsuit said. Web site page views are a basic way of measuring audience and are used to set advertising rates.
“Google does not generally inform Web sites that they have been penalized nor does it explain in detail why the Web site was penalized,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit goes on to claim that KinderStart’s constitutional right to free speech has been violated because they’ve lost relevancy and/or were removed from Google’s search index.
I may be taking an overly simple look at this lawsuit, but in my mind, it’s Google’s index and they can do with it what they want – including dropping you completely if they choose to do so.
I look at our own Blog Network List the same way – today we generally cover all sorts of blog networks, but in the future we may categorize those networks or drop some types all together. Are we to be held up in court from running our business as we see fit?
