Last week I wrote of the possibility of government censorship on the Internet (Censoring the Internet, May 19). “If you’ve never considered the possibility that the federal government might one day tell you what websites you could access...” I stated, not realizing that not the feds, but the most popular search engine on the Net has chosen to tinker with the supposed impartiality of their search algorithms and censor certain websites.

According to Noel Sheppard and Marc Sheppard, writing for The American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5517 , Google has been terminating its news relationship with conservative e-zines and blogs. A recent story about Google’s approach to conservative websites at NewsBusters.org, for instance, has mysteriously “disappeared” from Google News search results.

Back in early 2005, Michelle Malkin wrote about problems she was having with her site becoming part of Google News. Her complaints have been echoed by a growing list of other conservative website owners. Why target conservative-themed sites? USA Today reported last year that 98% of contributions made in 2004 by Google employees to political parties went to Democrats, including a $25,000 donation by Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

How does Google treat leftist sites? Not with impartiality, that’s for sure. MoveOn has been the recipient of more than $1 million from Google. To add to this, Al Gore, who looks to be making a stealth campaign for the presidency in 2008, is a senior advisor for Google. Democratic political analyst Susan Estrich has stated that Gore was rewarded with a nice chunk of Google shares for his “advice.”

Wouldn’t it be interesting if Gore threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 and you did a Google search for his Republican opponent -- and kept on getting sent to AlGoreForPresident.com?

Google ALGORithms and AL GORE. The left-wing version of Internet symmetry?