March 1, 2009 | Online

PinkNews to Google: It's on!

From Tuesday to Thursday of this past week surfers relying on Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Google's search engine were told to avoid PinkNews.co.uk. The site, according to , was a source of malware, software designed to damage a computer system without the owner's knowledge or consent.

PinkNews.co.uk editor Tony Grew was not happy about the situation, which effectively blocked the site from readers around the world.

"Google's decision to list PinkNews.co.uk as an attack site has damaged our reputation as well as lost us revenue," Grew said. "The LGBT community has also been deprived of its most trusted source of news, reducing freedom of speech online."

Legal action is being considered.

"Google has set up a number of automated systems to scour our index for potentially dangerous sites," a Google spokesperson said, "and we add a label to those that appear to be a vehicle for malware, to protect users who might visit them. ... It's important to note that sites can sometimes be compromised without the webmaster's knowledge."

Frustrating? We're sure it was. But we doubt there's some great conspiracy here. Or is there ... ?

PinkNews.co.uk considers legal action over Google ban []