Is Google Being Evil to Bloggers?

: Image via CrunchBase

This is exactly why I started using Wordpress instead of Google's Blogger platform.

Several music industry bloggers are reporting that many of their blog posts are simply disappearing.

L.A. Weekly says that the bloggers affected are all using Google’s Blogger platform which, needless to say, has a lot of music bloggers up in arms.

The story first came to light after Ryan Spaulding, of the Boston-based music blog Ryan’s Smashing Life, noticed that several of his month-old blog posts, as well as some much older ones, were simply vanishing from his site.

Not sure of what was going on, Ryan began talking with ther music bloggers and discovered that music posts everywhere were disappearing.

Upon further investigation, it seems that all of the blogs in question are located on Google's Blogger service.

Eventually, though, a consensus emerged: Each post takedown occurred on a blog hosted by the Google-owned Blogger platform, the publishing system used by the majority of mp3 sites, particularly those founded prior to 2007, when the open-source WordPress software became the vogue. Google, the bloggers believe, has quietly changed the methods by which it enforces its user agreement. Whereas in the past, a blog owner would receive a warning before a post’s removal, Google is now simply hitting the delete button. In Spaulding’s case, this means that posts written over the past year or more on Wilco, the Annuals, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Matisyahu and Earth, Wind & Fire are gone.

“I’d received the label’s press releases and followed their directions, spending my time and energy to promote their albums,” explains a frustrated Spaulding. “By pulling down my post, they destroyed my intellectual creativity, the very same thing they’re erroneously accusing me of doing. Say someone had linked to that post, or [blog aggregator] Hype Machine — it’s gone completely. If I go into my Blogger table of contents, it’s gone. Not de-published — gone.”

Spaulding says he plays by the understood rules, and is doing the same thing that thousands of other music bloggers are doing. “I’m not leaking albums, not putting up three mp3s. Just the one they wanted. And they start erasing everything, with the threat of a lawsuit. People are afraid.”

Source: LA Weekly

If this story turns out to be true, and Google is to blame for the mysterious disappearances, then this would put some serious hear on Google.

Obviously, anything on the Blogger platform is owned by Google, but to just have your posts start disappearing with no prior notice is inexcusable.