Google has apologised for an offensive image of the US first lady Michelle Obama appearing at the top of their image rankings. While Google apologised for the image they did not remove it from their index despite some public and media pressure.

The image was eventually removed from blog, making it fall off the rankings.

This case is reminiscent of when typing ‘miserable failure’ into Google pulled up George Bush’s personal profile as the first listing. Again this was because many bloggers and websites had mischievously linked this phrase directly back to George Bush’s website profile. Google eventually intervened and removed the connection but took months to act.

Google has intervened before in the case of George Bush and 'miserable failure'

Google is fiercely protective of its ‘algorithm’, which is the automatic system that decides which websites should rank highly. While the exact details are kept secret one important factor is the quantity and importance of websites linking back to a web page. The Michelle Obama image had obviously been discussed and published on other blogs and news websites sites, pushing it to the top of Google image search.

Relevancy is what has made Google such a huge success and they are justified in protecting their rights to free speech, however you could argue that anyone genuinely wanting to find a picture of Michelle Obama would not be interested in the offensive version.

What do you think?

See more details of the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8377922.stm