Ask HN: Why is Google purging all search results for Syrian Arab News Agency?

Re:Ask HN: Why is Google purging all search results for Syri... by mschuster91 on Saturday September 14, 2013 @07:21PM (#6387474)

To quote from the Wikipedia article about SANA:

  Up until November 2012, SANA's website was hosted in Dallas, Texas by the United States company SoftLayer. Due to sanctions related to the Syrian civil war, which make this hosting illegal, the SoftLayer company was obliged to terminate its hosting responsibilities with SANA.

I have no idea about the exact legal powers of international (unilateral?) sanctions in the US, but is it possible that Google de-listed SANA because of legal issues?

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Google purging all search results for Syri... by chrismcb on Saturday September 14, 2013 @07:32PM (#6387504)

I'm curious what sanctions prevent hosting a Syrian website? http://damascus.usembassy.gov/sanctions-syr.html claims there are only 3 sanctions: No US goods(basically) can be exported to Syria, something against the commercial bank, and denying Syria access to the US financial system.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Google purging all search results for Syri... by mschuster91 on Saturday September 14, 2013 @07:48PM (#6387564)

How can you host a website without paying for it? Just like fighting against "pirate" websites, just in reverse this time.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Google purging all search results for Syri... by teamgb on Saturday September 14, 2013 @09:19PM (#6387800)

If there were any legal issues, why are Bing and DuckDuckGo still returning SANA in their results? This is all very strange.

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