Some of the News That Could Be True

The following comes from Altara Blog:

Google Announces Agreement with Florida Town

March 4, 2006 Google issued today a press release announcing a special agreement with the new Florida town of Ave Maria. This planned community, sponsored mainly by the founder of Domino's Pizza, Thomas S. Monaghan, was founded with the intent that it be governed by the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. It is expected that pornographic materials will be banned, pharmacies will not sell condoms or birth control pills, and cable TV will carry no X-rated channels.

The principal effect of Google agreement is that a search entered with words that could lead to porn websites will result in connection to the Vatican library website. The same will happen for searches for “pro choice”, “evolution” or other words indicating misguided thoughts. In a brief press conference, Google spokesman, Roger Blandon, pointed out that, in the context of this town, the search limitation was in furtherance of the Google principle of not being evil.. He also noted that Yahoo and other search engine companies had reached similar agreements.

The Ave Maria mayor, Mary Major, praised the agreement, noting that the town’s citizens could now use internet search engines without risk of being led to wicked websites. She said that her administration was close to an agreement providing for an exclusive town-wide wireless internet access with similar protection. She also announced the formation of a committee to make recommendations for immigration policy.

The piece is obviously a satirical play on the deal that Google recently struck with China, that some feel has compromised Google's integrity. But I thought it was interesting how well it translates to a moral context. I wish I had thought of something like this back when the online newsletter "The Sugarbeet" was still being published as it certainly would have fit there as well.

We're all up in arms about Google's "caving into" the Chinese but how many of us would be thrilled to have a sanitized Google to offer our families in our own homes. We all want to say to our kids, "You have freedom of choice as long as I get to pick the options you can choose from." Now who's idea was that again?