IT'S A FREE COUNTRY, AND IF GOOGLE WANTS TO BE STUPID, THAT'S THEIR RIGHT.

So, my site michaelpsycho.com was removed from the almighty Google index. Curiously, the pages within the site are still listed but not the main page. Strangely, this happened just days after I signed up for a Google Alert on my name, which was (supposed) to send me alerts whenever something about "Michael Psycho" comes up on their search engine.

I sent an email politely asking why my main site page was removed. Here's the bullshit automated answer that I got from Google:

From: help@google.com
Subject: Re: [#476796004] Why was my site removed?

Thank you for writing to Google. If you have a question or suggestion
about our products, please visit http://www.google.com/support/. There,
you'll find links to our Help Centers, which offer answers to our most
frequently asked questions. Due to a high volume of email, we currently
respond only to messages submitted through specific forms in these Help
Centers.

Regards,
The Google Team


No you don't. Stop lying, Google. You just send some generic "go check out our terms" link in response. I've read your response to the same question I'm asking on the Help Centers and that's all you do in response.

Oh well. Fuck 'em. Hey, what can I do, they're a private business. It would create a tremendous amount of publicity and discussion to just lawyer up and sue them, but I don't want my name in the paper anyway. If they restore the listing, great, but I'm not holding my breath.

Google, of course, won't go into any details as to why the site was removed.

If Google had removed it at somebody's request, I doubt it, but only because

a.) Google supposedly doesn't do that, and

b.) I don't think that anyone could be that much of a pussy.

And then again, I'd be flattered if they did, because it means that they fear me and can only do juvenile shit like that to try and discourage me, which will never happen. The only way that you will discourage me is to kill me. I'm not going away, Google listing or no Google listing, so deal with it.

The consolation in all of this is that, thanks to Google's ban, this blog is now listed first on a search for "Michael Psycho", and lately the blog is what's been pissing certain people off. So, in that respect, thanks, Google! I can't wait to not hear the bullshit reason why you shut down this blog as the next step! After all, they own blogger.com and it would be too easy. If anything, I've learned a valuable lesson about what happens when a corporation gets too powerful and can, in effect, do whatever the fuck it wants without any recourse.

(Update 7/26/09: How nice of the folks in Mountain View. As of 1345 hours PST, the site is back up in the search engine listing! Either Google listened to a squeaky wheel right quick, or I really am a raving paranoid. Perhaps a little of both. If this was simply a mistake on the part of Google, I sincerely appreciate the effort to correct it. It would actually restore some faith in the integrity of people again.)