This is amusing. Apparently someone at The Register is annoyed by Google News showing press releases.
Hm. I dunno. Is it really that big a deal?
Posted by jzawodn at April 05, 2003 08:18 PM
i actually made this comment elsewhere, too. at least they're up-front about the source. i've seen press releases from companies i worked for appear online with barely more than a few word tweaks, and yet they appear under someone's byline.
i think the problem that the register is right to point out is that some of the press releases (allegedly) appear with simply a "yahoo! news" attribution. why is google even listing yahoo! news stories? does yahoo! even do any original reporting these days?
That's nonsense. Small publications, such as trade mags or newsletters *routinely* run press releases that they've slightly modified -- if at all.
It seems to me that Orlowski just has some major problem with Google and he likes to vent about it. He followed this up with the Google removing blogs from index story which was subsequently denied.