Google really should publicly explain their stance on this - their (and other search engines') role in the internet is just far too important for it to be left

Google really should publicly explain their stance on this - their (and other search engines') role in the internet is just far too important for it to be left to some internal policy. I would advocate some form of regulation of this type of thing - but the chances of us ending up with something worse than the status quo is probably a bit high.