The first comment on Google censoring their search results really said it best.

Censorship in the name of privacy bad. Censorship in the name of corporate interests good.

Hypocrites.

Google is one of the few companies who actually would have the power to tell the RIAA and MPAA to get lost. But that it might temporarily reduce profits 1% makes that untenable.

By the way, entire domestic movie industry revenue, 2013: $10.9 billion

Entire domestic music industry revenue, 2013: $7 billion

Google revenue, 2013: $57.86 billion

In short, Google alone is 3.2 times larger than the entire US music and movie industry combined.

So, yep, it is a choice to censor and yep, it’s also a bad one.

How the people who make this decision live with it, I can’t even begin to imagine.