It's interesting how on Hacker News, story about Google getting fined was censored and removed yet PR from Google is still on the front page. It's sad that bias and censorship on here is so strong.
This article has <200 comments, while the other one has >400; this is likely a significant factor in the falling ranking, in addition to the age.
I also believe that upvote velocity is weighted more heavily than upvote quantity, but I could be wrong there.
[1] http://blog.datadive.net/which-topics-get-the-upvote-on-hack...
Whether it comes through the Google PR machine or not, people are still getting the key message: Google has been fined for playing unfairly. Most people don't read past the headline, and defending against these allegations still just makes the allegations stickier in the minds of public; it strengthens the association between "Google" and "unfair" in the public's psyche.