The familiar and at-times tiresome argument: it Google (NSDQ: GOOG) a content company and is it competing against the very content partners that use its services? This time the culprit is the newly launched Wikipedia-challenger Knol, and the argument is whether Google will give preferential treatment in its search to articles within Knol, vs similar topics from other competing sites. NYT picks up that thread, and does say that there is little evidence that Knol has received favorable treatment in search results till now. Some of the media companies are beginning to embrace Knol, adding their own stories/topics to Knol, but some, like Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO), has no intention of building up a competitor. Wenda Harris Millard, the co-CEO of MSLO, said: “You are continuing to build their business if you do that, versus building your own.”

SEE ALSO: Google Launches Its Challenge To Wikipedia With Wide Release Of Knol

According to Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Mahalo, a competition of sorts to Knol, it is possible that with YouTube, Knol, Blogger and other company sites, Google could take 3 of the top 10 results in some searches, thus alienating Web publishers that are Google’s advertising partners, even if there is no indication that Google artificially favored its sites. Of course at this point, very few have a choice not to work with Google…