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Comment by DiabloD3 | Hacker News Reader

What stops Google from just pulling out of Australia stating Australian laws are anti-free speech and unworkable for American countries, and then blacklisting all .au TLDed sites from the index?

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A technological reason might be that it is quite handy to have a place with similar demographics but a small user base to test stuff. For example, they might use it to see how easy/hard it is to implement country-specific rulesets.

When I worked for a national insurer, Tasmania got all the new stuff first so we could see what broke and what didn't.

American countries?

DiabloD3 probably meant American companies.

That correction doesn't make the comment less inane though. I'm pretty sure that getting into a pissing match with a sovereign Western nation would be a no-win situation for Google - lose and, well, you lost; win and you've got every other government (including the U.S.) painting a target on your back.

Especially when they admit it is a problem and that it is against their TOU.

You know, all the countries that matter, the ammerican one.

</Canadian who wanted to watch the The Daily Show's extended interviews>

> Canadian who wanted to watch the The Daily Show's extended interviews

Try this: http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-ste...

Whoops, too late to edit now I think. I meant American companies.

Also, to those downvoting me: this isn't a troll, I am honestly asking as I am not a lawyer nor a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

Because of the billions of other google users that might want to access .au domains. If google won't index it, you can bet Bing will capitalise.

It might let some competitor get a foothold in Australia, which anyone who's played Risk knows is a powerful position.

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