Google blocking Google

For the last several days, I haven’t been getting updated RSS feeds from Google News. I have a dozen or so feeds set up from Google News search results, which often surfaces some interesting or important information. But for almost a week, zip. Nothing.

After trying several approaches to getting the feeds to show again, I contacted customer support for NewsGator, which owns FeedDemon, the aggregator I use. The response from NewsGator: Google’s servers have “unintentionally” blocked NewsGator. That is, NewsGator’s services are unable to connect to Google RSS feeds. NewsGator is “communicating with the folks at Google” to resolve the issue.

I won’t claim a conspiracy theory here and suggest that Google—host of the very popular Google RSS reader—is intentially sabotaging a competitor. But how long does it take to unblock one company if the blocking was accidental? The fact that I can’t read Google News feeds on FeedDemon is absurd. C’mon, Google. Get your act together.

1. I’ve noticed a similar problem with Craig’s List RSS feeds not updating in FeedDemon. The last updates on the feeds I monitor appear to be in late September, but clearly the pages that the feeds refer to have received many more postings since that timeframe.

   Wonder what’s going on in the engineroom at NewsGator?

   Posted by Steven Lubetkin  on  11/04  at  12:57 PM