Setting Boundaries, Google Style

New York (CNN) -- Internet search giant Google is bracing for a fine that could top $500 million, after a federal probe of illegal online pharmacy ads placed on the website over the past three years, CNN has confirmed.

Law enforcement sources tell CNN that federal prosecutors in Rhode Island, along with undercover agents from the Food and Drug Administration, are heading up a massive investigation aimed at showing Google knowingly took advertising money from websites selling highly addictive drugs without a legitimate prescription.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Providence told CNN he could "neither confirm nor deny" reports of the probe, and Google declined comment "since this is a legal matter."

This will set a line for search engines and responsibility for their results.  Is it legal for a site to show preference?  Who says all search engines should be created equal?  Should every customer of Google be scrutinized for possible illegal connections?  Where is the line between returning results and endorsing?  Unlike television and paper copy, the Internet is interactive and part of the responsibility surely falls to the searcher.  In protection of free speech, when does it become illegal to read up on the illegal?

It's time to answer these questions and define some boundaries and what rights one can expect.