[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]Yes, the best option is to support a different search engine. Consumer power. That doesn't mean people can't still be bothered by it and express those opinions.I don't think this issue is that simple though. This isn't the first time Google has been accused of tampering with the search results in their own favor. The local news can choose which sports to cover, but they can't report that every restaurant in town other than the one owned by the news company will give you a disease. This is favoritism that they stand to profit from. People think of Youtube as a free media source, but don't forget Google has pay movies now, official releases. They don't want you to go to Youtube to find pirated shows, they want you to BUY them.Google isn't the old friend with freebies anymore, that's just a front now. This is going to bite them in the end.[/citation]
To be fair, Youtube has significantly more built-in features to combat copyright infringement than virtually any other content-hosting service, and google/youtube play a very active role in removing infringing material. In the spirit of what this filtering hopes to accomplish, I see less wrong with youtube being exempt.
I wonder if their algorithm takes into account the take-down notice vs. total media files hosted--because that should matter (at least, in my eyes it should).