March 18 through 24, 2007, marks National Poison Prevention Week and it comes with some good news.

In the 1970s there were more than 200 child deaths a year attributed to the accidental ingestion of any manner of dangerous household chemicals, personal care products, over-the-counter medications, and cleaning agents. Due to the efforts of multiple agencies, the occurrence of these unfortunate accidents has been reduced to about 36 a year.

In 2005 about 91,000 young children visited hospital emergency rooms do to unintentional poisoning, and poison control call centers fielded more than 1 million calls. By maintaining constant availability and aggressive public awareness, organizations such as the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission seek to further reduce accidental poison fatalities.

To prevent these incidents, CPSC recommends the following safety steps:

An excellent article appeared in Red Herring written by Alexandra Berzon. In her article, Alexandra describes a recent, albeit small, misstep by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) whereby it began placing Google-leaning content tips at the head of search results. An outcry arose and our friends at Google quickly disengaged the "service."

This situation brings two things to the forefront of my thinking. First, why can't eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) react in similar timely fashion to its membership outcries when it receives them? Secondly, what does Google's attempt here signal in the realm of content manipulation? Setting aside the eBay angle and the business aspects of Google's decisions, let's quickly address the impending danger of content manipulation.