Ads on Google have placed pro-fracking propaganda at the top of Google search results and into the middle of an important discussion on the environmental impacts of fracking. The practice raises important questions about the role of search engines in the new media world.....

Howarth is the chief author of an important paper on the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial method of obtaining natural gas. The paper concludes that the practice is not a clean way to extract domestic energy, as many allege, and has an even greater carbon footprint than coal. The paper's conclusions poke holes in some of the most common talking points used by supporters of fracking and made major headlines, including a large and prominently placed article in The New York Times in April 2011. Howarth, along with one of his co-authors, Anthony Ingraffea, and activist actor Mark Ruffalo, were ranked by Time as among the 100 "people who matter" in 2011.

The paper also got the attention of the gas lobby. Most notably, America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA). Soon after the paper was released, Howarth and others noticed a disturbing phenomenon on Google. Every time Professor Howarth's name was placed into a Google search engine, the first thing that appeared was an ad from ANGA, devoted strictly to hampering the credibility of Howarth's research....

"The ad is incredibly unethical. It is a deliberate attempt to distort and suppress information and to intimidate me and also any other scientist who has research results that the gas industry may not like," he said....

Indeed, the Howarth ad is not an isolated incident. Filmmaker Josh Fox has also been a target of these types of ads. When the title of the anti-fracking film Gasland is entered into Google, a very similar ad from ANGA, this one titled "Truth about Gasland, " appears right at the top. Ads from ANGA also appear when the term "Josh Fox" is searched, as is the case when the title of his new film, "The Sky Is Pink," is entered into the engine. The Sky is Pink, Fox told Truthout in a phone interview, mentions the troubling Google ads that have smeared his name (around the 6:00 mark).  

"It's really an insidious practice. It is like having a fear campaign on the card catalogue in the library," said Fox, who wrote a detailed letter to Google looking for the ad to be removed (with no response from Google so far). "It's an abuse.... They have to be conscious of the fact that it is hampering people's reputations. And, worse, they are making money - in my case, quite a lot - from this. They should immediately cease the practice ... because Google is profiting off the smearing of a renowned scientist and an Academy Award-nominated film." ....

Google's silence on these issues is troubling. If Google is mulling the complexities of this method of obtaining revenue, they are not making such deliberations public. "They are stifling public discourse, while turning a profit themselves," Howarth said. "I have tried for over a year to complain to Google, but they have never responded to me."

Several efforts to contact Google by Truthout also proved unsuccessful.