The Land of Israel Legal Forum has recently turned to the CEO of Google to stop harassing surfers in Gush Etzion.
In line with Google’s recent decision to recognize Palestine, http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=166834 Google has begun incorporating its maps in its websites as it promotes Palestine Google. Residents of Gush Etzion communities report that this past week Google began bothering web surfers using its browser. They are receiving a message to move over to Google.ps instead of Google.co.il. Residents point out they were surfing in Hebrew, and not Arabic. Surfers report they were unable to stop Google from bothering them to switch to Google.ps.
The legal forum has turned to Google Israel CEO Meyer Brand, calling upon him to take immediate action to stop this new trend, which they refer to as harassment.
Nachi Brand wrote that it is unfortunate that Google, which is a company and not a political entity, has decided that residents of Yehuda and Shomron belong to the PA (Palestinian Authority) and continues to hassle surfers in those areas using Hebrew to change to Google Palestine. Brand explains Hebrew surfers do not require or want the message and it should be stopped immediately.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
easy solution to the problem. stop using the google search engine. There are others. If enough of us who live in yehuda / shomrom did this – google would get the message loud and clear.
so use another search engine. that’s what competition and the free market economy is for
1. The opinion of every country in the world, except Israel, is that the West Bank is “Palestine” not “Israel.” In fact, the Israeli government does not claim that the West Bank is Israeli territory (that’s why they apply the law of belligerent occupation to it). Google can’t be expected to go against what the government thinks.
2. Interfaces should largely be language based, especially in multilingual areas.
There is no good alternative search engine to Google. No one else comes close to what Google can do.
Furthermore, Google employs thousands of Israelis. Perhaps Google should be kicked out of Israel and told to take their jobs elsewhere, if Israel doesn’t like Google.
Get over it. Live with it. It’s no big deal.