Recently, a blog post by Michael Gray called “Is Google Stealing Your Content and Hijacking Your Traffic” caught my attention. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s the low down: The blog suggests that Google is “stealing” traffic (and thus revenue) from other companies by providing more information to its searchers upfront, instead of requiring searchers to click through and see the content themselves, among other claims.

I understand where Michael Gray is coming from, but to say that what we see from Google is unique or condemnable compared to traditional practice, common practice, or web 2.0 ethics is far from reality. Here I will challenge that frame of thought then cover a few very common examples of widely accepted and lauded businesses who practice similar techniques.

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