Site Owner Dumps Crude Obama Image

This story was written by CNET's Tom Krazit.
The owner of the Web site that had published an offensive caricature of Michelle Obama has removed the image, and it is disappearing from Google Image Search.

Google took out an ad earlier this week above Google Image Search results for Michelle Obama to explain why an offensive rendering of the First Lady was the top result in Google Image Search. But the Guardian noticed Wednesday that the image had been removed from the "Hot Girls" blog where it had been posted, alongside an apology written in Chinese.

Google Translate came up with this English version of the apology, "For this article was very sorry that this is the program automatically issued a document from the article. Do not the subject of race and politics make the discussion too radical and sincere hope that the world is very peaceful."

The image can no longer be found in the first five pages of Google Image Search results for Michelle Obama. In its ad, Google said "a site's ranking in Google's search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query."

Google also said that it doesn't remove search results unless they are illegal, violate its Webmaster guidelines against spyware or malware, or if the site owner requests the link be removed. It's not clear whether the owner of the Hot Girls blog requested such treatment, but a Google representative said the company did not ask the site owner to remove the image.