I want to post more information about the background that led to Google's decision mentioned in Minn's post.
A fraud eye-ware internet company was selling counterfeit eye glasses and then harassing customers when they complained about the product or tried to make returns. The guy was very threatening, borderline psychotic, and used his ability to locate the customer in order to intimidate the person.
The guy knew the loopholes with e-commerce and with credit card companies. If he was banned, he simply would create a new online identity to continue his business. Customers reacted by writing horrible customer reviews online about the company. However, these reviews in effect only bumped the guy up on the Google search list. The guy enjoyed the negative customer reviews because it was essentially free marketing for him.
In the second article, you'll see that the guy was eventually arrested and will likely spend many years in jail. This story reveals the imperfections and problems with e-commerce and with Google's search algorithm. Google amended its algorithm to try to prevent this sort of crime in the future.
I think this move by Google is a good thing and is leading us towards the idea of a semantic web, where search results provide us a meaningful list of what we want and need and not simply a list of the most linked-to sites.
November 26, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business
December 6, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07borker.html?src=busln
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I want to post more information about the background that led to Google's decision mentioned in Minn's post.
A fraud eye-ware internet company was selling counterfeit eye glasses and then harassing customers when they complained about the product or tried to make returns. The guy was very threatening, borderline psychotic, and used his ability to locate the customer in order to intimidate the person.
The guy knew the loopholes with e-commerce and with credit card companies. If he was banned, he simply would create a new online identity to continue his business. Customers reacted by writing horrible customer reviews online about the company. However, these reviews in effect only bumped the guy up on the Google search list. The guy enjoyed the negative customer reviews because it was essentially free marketing for him.
In the second article, you'll see that the guy was eventually arrested and will likely spend many years in jail. This story reveals the imperfections and problems with e-commerce and with Google's search algorithm. Google amended its algorithm to try to prevent this sort of crime in the future.
I think this move by Google is a good thing and is leading us towards the idea of a semantic web, where search results provide us a meaningful list of what we want and need and not simply a list of the most linked-to sites.
November 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business
December 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07borker.html?src=busln
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