First Lady Image Returns to Google

The offensive image of the First Lady Michelle Obama showed back up on Google’s search index, and the internet is in an uproar. The image ranked high for search pages, prompting Google to buy ads to explain the reason for the picture popping back up after its removal last week.

Google had originally removed the offensive image of the First Lady under the excuse that the website which was hosting the image had violated the company’s guidelines and was selling malware to its visitors. Unfortunately,  the same image could be viewed through other sites. Google had to do something to deal with all the flack they were getting over the Michelle Obama picture as well as other offensive images.

There now appears an ad on the Google site termed ‘Offensive Search Results’ which can lead searchers to http://www.google.com/resultsinfo.html. The search engine company is using the site is used  to apologize to users who end up having an unpleasant search experience with Google.

The page explains in detail the company’s policy, rules and regulations regarding offensive content, making the excuse to offended users that:

disturbing or offensive content that may sometimes be displayed on search results comes out of the internet or innocuous queries but the views expressed or images displayed are in no way endorsed by the company.

Google representatives say results displayed by the search engine are a direct reflection of the content that is present on the internet. Since site ranks by Google use complex mathematical algorithms, the ideals and preferences of the company’s staff don’t impact  results thrown up on the Search page.

In 2006, Google faced a similar situation when George Bush’s page ranked first for the search query ‘miserable failure.’ It was eventually taken down completely, but Ms Obama is not being so lucky about her unpleasant pic.