Google's golden days seem to be slowly slipping away as of late. Yet another critical article has popped up in the Houston Chronicle that takes issue with Google's policy of refusing to work with the U.S. Government while effectively bending over for Communist China.

From the article:

GOOGLE needs a new motto. Its old one, "don't be evil," seems a little dated given that Google has been a willing supporter of censorship by the Chinese government.

Until now, I've been a big Google fan. I praised the company for breaking with Wall Street convention in its initial public offering in 2004.

And just last week, Google criticized our government for demanding to examine millions of customers' Internet searches, purportedly in the fight against terrorism.

So I'd hoped that Google, more than Yahoo and certainly more than Microsoft, would show backbone when it came to China. Of all companies, Google alone seemed more likely to follow its conscience than its pocketbook.

Google is facing some serious uphill public relationship battle over the next several months. How they deal with it will be interesting. It's not like Google users are running away in droves, but with real challenges being mounted by both Yahoo! and MSN, it will be interesting to see if Google's image works to aid its competitors.