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“‘Blogging is not journalism.’ Period. Technology consultant Bill Thompson–whoever he is–has an absurd little temper tantrum today on BBCNews.com in a column about Google’s purchase of Pyra and the excitement it stirred in the blog community.” – JD’s New Media Musings

The TeleRead take: J.D. Lasica is right on the above–and something else, too. Especially I fear Thompson’s call for extremely close government regulation of search engines. Well, yes, Google does bear watching on the privacy issue. But be careful. Paradoxically, the more closely the government regulates, the more likely it is to demand sensitive information about users–and get it! A far better approach than heavy-handed regulation would be the creation of a massive, librarian-run search engine project–building on existing Net-related efforts of librarians.

While Google bears watching and maybe even some regulating beyond present laws, we shouldn’t rush into this without considering the downside, especially First Amendment issues. Google has had enough trouble with the Chinese government. We don’t need to add to the ability of U.S. politicians to exert pressure.

 
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