I see Google's censorship as an attack on "freedoms and rights".
> HNers to fall into knee-jerk behavioral patterns of vociferously defending all that is Google
I personally hate Google, and avoid their products whenever possible. I've used Bing for a number of years, and recently switched most of my searching to DuckDuckGo.
> European little guy has scored an important victory that gives them the tools to improve their quality of life
I don't think this is an "important victory", but rather an attack on the freedom of information.
P.S. I live in Australia and New Zealand.