Does a drop in Natural Search Rankings, or indeed a blacklisting by Google equal defamation? That is what Kinderstart would have us believe. In their ongoing lawsuit against Google, they are arguing that by dropping them from the natural search rankings, upon which their business is so depenedant, they are in effect sending a signal to their potential customers that this is not a credible company. What's more, by keeping their algorithms secret, the search engines do not give businesses a chance to ammend any actions that endanger their search engine rankings. This lawsuit, if successful, could dramatically affect the entire search engine marketing industry, revealing the secret sauce of Google's business model. While it remains to be seen if Kinderstart is going to be successful, the mere possibility does raise some very interesting questions.