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Google Businesses The Internet

Google Punishes Self for Cloaking 279

Posted by CmdrTaco from the slap-their-own-wrists dept.
amyrick writes "eWeek is carrying a story about Google's response to March 8th's cloaking accusations. Rather than justify the shady practices as some exception to their rules, Google removed the pages from their indices, and are requiring the pages' maintainers to revise the pages and reapply for indexing. Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency."
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Google Punishes Self for Cloaking More

Google Punishes Self for Cloaking

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  • Or... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tmleafsar ( 866698 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:25PM (#11904014)
    "at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency." Or maybe they got tired of Slashdot readers bashing them for underhanded business practices? In all honesty though, I'm glad to see them rectify this.

  • Nothing to see here... (Score:5, Funny)

    by what_the_frell ( 690581 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:25PM (#11904021)
    Please move along. -Google

  • Nice to see... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kebes ( 861706 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:25PM (#11904024) Journal
    It's nice to see that Google:

    1. Actually tries to follow the "don't be evil" thing.

    2. Reads slashdot.

    • Re:Nice to see... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pbranes ( 565105 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:31PM (#11904116)
      I fail to see how google boosting its own search rankings is "evil". They are not spamming you, breaking your computer, or stealing from you. Yes, I know this appears to be an accident. Hypothetically, what if this hadn't been accident? So google undertakes an action to try to keep you on their web page. Like I said a few days ago - google is in the business of making money, not helping you find things on the internet - that is just a side effect.

      As far as the slashdot thing goes, well, they do use linux clusters - what would you expect? :-)

      • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kebes ( 861706 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:37PM (#11904178) Journal
        As a matter of fact, I don't think what they were originally doing was "evil." Once you read their description of it, it does seem legit: the words were there as part of an internal indexing system.

        Even if they were purposefully increasing the ranking of their pages on their own engine, I don't consider that such a bad thing.

        However, I do feel that google has done the right, "non-evil" thing by promptly responding to this situation and changing it. The company could have pulled out any number of explanations or even ignored the situation entirely. Instead, they took the high road and simply fixed the problem so that everything is legit again.

        That's why I think it is an example of them enforcing the "don't be evil" thing. Granted, the "don't be evil" thing has alot to do with PR and corporate image... but I still admire Google for taking the opposite approach to companies like Microsoft.

        • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by d34thm0nk3y ( 653414 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:48PM (#11904314)
          All I am admiring is this superb bit of free PR they just pulled off. Clever bastards!

      • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by digidave ( 259925 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:38PM (#11904189)
        'Not playing fair' can be interpreted as 'evil' for large amounts of 'not playing fair'.

      • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dutchmaan ( 442553 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:43PM (#11904253) Homepage
        google is in the business of making money, not helping you find things on the internet - that is just a side effect.

        Google also knows that part of business is public perception. Google's public perception is one of integrity, and that it one big reason people like them. Yes they are in a business to make money, but one eventually must ask: If their success is being based on integrity and quality of product, how does bending their own rules affect them and their business in relation to public perception.

        • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by lowrydr310 ( 830514 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:00PM (#11904439)

          Google's public perception is one of integrity, and that it one big reason people like them.

          I like Google because their homepage isn't littered with ads and other junk. I was initially attracted to them becasue of their simplicity - a nearly blank webpage with one single graphic and a few links to other features. I like how MSN copied their style.

          In addition, many of my friends and family prefer Google over anything else because on a dial up connection, you don't need to wait 10 minutes for a whole page of graphics and banner ads to appear. I am more likely to click on Google's text ads in the search results because they're usually not obnoxious.

          This makes me think of why I like NPR over other radio stations - their 'ads' are usually spoken in a normal tone. It's one person saying "This show paid for in part by Chrysler" or whatever company, as opposed to some silly script with obnoxious voices. I can even tolerate some of the ads on the Howard Stern show - those that are read by Mr. Stern himself.

        • Re:Nice to see... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by gahzinia ( 816336 )
          Google's public perception is one of integrity, ...

          What does a company/person have to do until what could be considered a "perception" turns into what that company or person really is?

          They have a clean page, they don't sell rankings, everything that Google has done in the past left me with no doubt that this is how they would react. I knew they would take the right course of action.

          Granted, maybe the inner workings of Google are slave drivers who dock you a week's pay for taking five extra minutes for

          • Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Syre ( 234917 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @07:10PM (#11905095)
            If a normal site was caught using cloaking or other tricks they would be not only dropped from the Google index but would be "banned".

            ie: They would be given a PageRank of 0 and their pages would not show up in searches for 6 months to 2 years.

            If Google was really playing by the same rules they apply to everyone else, they'd ban these pages too. Instead, I bet the pages show up in a couple of days.

            If so, this is really just a PR move on their part. Nothing to do with how they really treat other sites.

      • Re:Nice to see... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by kwerle ( 39371 )
        I fail to see how google boosting its own search rankings is "evil".

        When you are in a position of power (and I'd say that google qualifies), imposing different rules on the peons than you impose on yourself is often considered evil/bad.

        Obviously they can do things as they please (decide how to rank things, etc - hell, they could give bonuses for their IP blocks) - but in telling Page owners not to behave a certain way, and then doing so themselves... Well, it obviously gives rise to certain questions.

      • Every other comment on Slashdot seems to comprise one of you Capitalist gurus saying "X is in the business of making money" by way of answer to anything from customer complaints to Congressional displeasure. And you don't say it as an excuse either, but with some sort of righteous triumph. This argument won't wash.

        Think about this: If Google is "in the business of making money", not in the business of helping people "find things on the internet", then what are they bothering with all that search engine no

      • I fail to see how google boosting its own search rankings is "evil".

        Deep philosophical discussions about relativism and universal morality aside. The meaning of "evil" can have different meanings in different contexts. Google is in the game of trying to figure out a way to rank and display web pages. It is totally appropriate for Google to label practices as good, bad and evil. Good practices would be those that help the ranking process. Bad practices are those that get in the way (like putting a sessio

    • It's nice to see that Google:

      1. Actually tries to follow the "don't be evil" thing.

      2. Reads slashdot.

      3. cares.

      little does anyone suspect, however that google has a heart of blackest evil and in their most vile cunning have dressed in sheep's clothing all the while plotting world domination. You'll know when you see google-o's on the shelf at the store, sugar, carbs, fat, even msg and it'll be all over for you as they capture the souls of your children! bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaah ack choke cough wheeze

    • Re:Nice to see... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Quixote ( 154172 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:42PM (#11904249) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, I believe Mr. Google reads Slashdot during his lunch break, as well as before going to bed. Seems like a nice guy.

    • Deluded self-congratulatory post off t' port bow! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by devphil ( 51341 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:46PM (#11904283) Homepage


      2. Reads slashdot.

      'Cause, as we all know, Slashdot was the only news-reposting site to cover this story, so if Google noticed any criticisms at all, it had to come from here. A site such as, say, searchenginewatch.com, would never have mentioned it.

    • Re:Nice to see... (Score:4, Funny)

      by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:10PM (#11904553)
      "2. Reads slashdot."

      Please hire me! Please Please Please...
    • Huh? Google didn't do the right thing. They skirted blame by saying it was done "inadvertently." The RIGHT thing would have been to admit its wrongdoing. Note: admitting exposed facts is not the same as admitting wrongdoing. At the very least, the employee(s) responsible for skirting Google's own rules should be fired... unless of course they were following company orders. (Will we ever know? Did Google comment on the issue?)

      It's sad that in today's world a company -- admitting the obvious after it has be

      • Huh? Google didn't do the right thing. They skirted blame by saying it was done "inadvertently." ...Google has demonstrated this week that it is no saint.

        Did any of you self-righteous goons actually search for the "cloaked" Adwords page yourself? If you had, you'd have seen that when the page came up in Google's search listing, the listing did not give the "friendly" title of "Why do traffic estimates for my Ad group differ etc." that Google would have wanted you to see.

        Instead the listing title sho

  • Translation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bonch ( 38532 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:25PM (#11904025)
    Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency.


    Translation: "We got caught with our pants down."

    How is Google punishing anyone? All they're doing is now choosing to follow their own rules.
    • How is Google punishing anyone? All they're doing is now choosing to follow their own rules.

      Yes, and their own rules require a punishment of having the offending pages removed from the index.

    • Re:Translation (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:30PM (#11904095) Homepage
      How is Google punishing anyone? All they're doing is now choosing to follow their own rules.

      didnt you RTFA?

      the employees responsible will be held in public stockades in front of the Google building for 3 days while rotten fruit will be available for the public to hurl at them.

    • Not necessarily... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Omega ( 1602 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:24PM (#11904689) Homepage
      In any sufficiently large corporation, having the right hand not talk to the left hand is par for the course. I'd wager that the people who setup the adwords pages didn't know about Google's rules for cloaking or keyword stuffing -- or they thought the rules didn't apply internally. More importantly, they didn't ask anyone. It happens all the time:

      The technical or editorial teams setup the rules of the game for how their site will behave and how users will interact with the site; and then the business or sales team makes some decision without consulting the techs or editors.

      Not knowing doesn't excuse the adwords team -- they should've consulted the Google.com team before they tried to "improve their rankings on Google." I just think it's more complicated than the idea of the borg-mentality: that all actions by different parts of the company were universally sanctioned by every employee of the company.

    • OT: your sig (Score:3, Informative)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 )
      "Regime" means "form of government." A regime can be fascist, democratic, monarchist, whatever, and still be a "regime". So it is perfectly reasonable to talk about the Bush regime, the Allawi regime, the Castro regime, whatever; it has nothing to do with how repressive it is (or isn't).

    • Re:Translation (Score:3, Informative)

      by TomRitchford ( 177931 )
      Stop sarcastically saying "Bush regime." You've never experienced life in a REAL regime or seen what one does.

      The definition [answers.com] of regime is "a system of managing government; a form of government." So what is a "REAL" regime?

      (PS: There are over a hundred thousand people dead in the last three years because of the current government -- that's pretty impressive, even by tinpot dictator standards...)

  • Not quite evil enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by CDOS_CDOS run ( 669823 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:25PM (#11904028)
    Wow, and I was afraid Google was going down the Evil slope. Maybe they are just the saccerine of evil. Only 1 calorie, not quite evil enough.
    • Don't count your chickens before they hatch. It is still a young company, and money is still the prime objective. Remember: Bill Gates is one of the largest constributor to non-profit organizations. Makes him and Microsoft part of the "good guys, Inc.", doesn't it? Oh wait.. they're mostly _his_ non profits. hmmm.

      I'll reserve judgement until the cards are face up.


      • Bill Gates is one of the largest constributor to non-profit organizations.

        Bill Gates has the advantage of owning what amounts to a privately-owned tax and revenue system (Windows monopoly).

        I'll credit Bill and Melinda Gates for what they've done to help charitable causes, particularly the childhood immunization programs in Africa.

        But, were the government to levy a comparably-sized tax on purchasers of software they'd be able to give a larger fraction of it to the people in need, notwithstanding all the

  • More about "Google Guy" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xmas2003 ( 739875 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:26PM (#11904035) Homepage
    An occasional poster to the Search Engine Forum is someone named GoogleGuy, who is real ... at least according to the Google Blog itself. [google.com]

    Check out his comments on the affair [zorgloob.com] which echo the EWeek article, but provide a little more detail.

  • Problem with Search Appliance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by _Sharp'r_ ( 649297 ) <sharper@@@booksunderreview...com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:26PM (#11904038) Homepage Journal
    Apparently the original problem was caused by the Google Search Appliance identifying itself with the string googlebot, similar to the general search sit bot. The support section of the site was setup to return additional keyword information to the internal search appliance and "accidently" returned the same info to the regular googlebot.

    Of course, it's nice to hear they're making themselves fix it before relisting themselves.

  • Uh Oh.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BalorTFL ( 766196 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:26PM (#11904039)
    Everyone knows they only de-cloak just before attacking...

  • I still don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Roguelazer ( 606927 ) <Roguelazer@nOSpam.gmail.com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:27PM (#11904052) Homepage Journal
    "Term Stuffing"? It didn't look like the terms used on that page were chosen to pop up in a search engine. They looked to me much more like the terms that any marketing department would use to make a product seem good/useful/whatever. Are we going to ban marketing departments from using common positive words now?

  • Questionable? (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:28PM (#11904056) Homepage Journal
    As I posted in the last story about this, it was very easy to confirm that the pages were serving up different content to googlebot than they were serving up to everybody else. I opened up a command prompt and used telnet to download the page as if I were googlebot and without a user agent string:
    telnet adwords.google.co.uk 80
    GET /support/bin/answer.py?answer=9653&topic=65 HTTP/1.0
    host: adwords.google.co.uk
    User-Agent: Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)

    ...

    <ti tle>
    traffic estimator, traffic estimates, traffic tool, estimate traffic
    Google AdWords Support: Why do traffic estimates for my Ad Group differ from those given by the standalone tool?
    </title>
    ...
    And without googlebot:
    telnet adwords.google.co.uk 80
    GET /support/bin/answer.py?answer=9653&topic=65 HTTP/1.0
    host: adwords.google.co.uk

    ...

    <title>
    Google AdWords Support: Why do traffic estimates for my Ad Group differ from those given by the standalone tool?
    </title>
    ...

  • Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Google! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:28PM (#11904063) Homepage Journal
    Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Google!

    Oh, wicked, wicked Google. Oh, it is a naughty business and it must pay the penalty, and here in /., we have but one punishment for setting cloaking: you must tie it down on a bed and spank it.

  • Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by JakeD409 ( 740143 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:28PM (#11904065)
    This is a good business method, I hope we see others mimic it. Perhaps Microsoft will comply and remove all security holes from their operating system, then require the exploiters to revise their viruses and reapply for infecting.

  • Impressive! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ohrion ( 814105 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:28PM (#11904068) Journal
    That's pretty impressive actually... Rather than just saying they can do whatever they want since it's their stuff, they're sticking to, and enforcing, their own (external) policies. I think this shows integrity as a company.

  • I wish (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tsiangkun ( 746511 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:29PM (#11904069) Homepage
    When I broke the law the "punishment" was try again and do it right this time.

    • Re:I wish (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Proteus ( 1926 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:47PM (#11904301) Homepage Journal

      Google didn't break any laws, just their own rules. They are punishing their employees with the same sanctions they use against anyone else. I think that's pretty cool, and I wish we (as a community) showed as much consistency when trying corporate criminals and celebrities as Google has shown here.

    • Let that be a lesson to all you kids. When you're out in public, do NOT perform keyword stuffing. Stuffing of any kind is against the law.

  • Ah. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Robotron23 ( 832528 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:29PM (#11904072)
    Interesting...A company as huge as Google trying to maintain its squeeky clean company reputation (and hence respect of us nerds) through such meticulous work and attention to its userbase.

    Maybe Google's return to its old informal self is on the cards? :)

  • WOW! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:31PM (#11904108) Journal
    What a publicity stunt!

  • Smooth (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DrinkingIllini ( 842502 )
    More people saw those damn pages from the hoopla over this thing than the cloaking ever caused.

  • Man (Score:3, Funny)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:31PM (#11904113) Homepage
    Why don't they just buy a Google Ad?
  • The additional keywords were meant only for the internal crawler serving Google's site search, spokesman Barry Schnitt said.


    'Nuff said.

  • At Least They Didn't Hardcode The Results Page (Score:5, Insightful)

    by filmmaker ( 850359 ) * on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:35PM (#11904155) Homepage
    A lot of search engines would have just hardcoded their own result at or near the number one spot. Not trying to be a Google fanboy, but you gotta give them credit for at least cheating the hard way.
  • They don't like it when people Google bomb and if they do it themselves, they'll just be hypocrites. It doesn't matter that they own their search service, no one likes a hypocrite who lectures "do as I say, not as I do."

    People just naturally grow contemptuous of rules that are made by someone who says that they don't apply to them. The government has found that out the hard way when it exempts itself from the Constitution of all things when going after such "vermin" as drug dealers.

    Leading by example is t

  • Federation of Planets did this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikegroovy ( 559853 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:36PM (#11904165)
    Anyone Remember ST:TNG episode "Pegasus" Where Starfleet had a Phased Cloaking device. Well the Federation(Capt. Picard) Came clean with the Romulans and acknowledged that They broke the no cloak Treaty. I bet some higher-ups at Google watched that same episode!

  • Huh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


    > Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency.

    Don't they know this is the internet?

  • NO (Score:2, Funny)

    by Neoncow ( 802085 )
    BAD Google. BAD.

    ...

    Awww... We still love you.

  • waffles belgian syrup waffles waffles belgian (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:40PM (#11904225) Homepage Journal
    waffles belgian syrup waffles waffles belgian
    Well, I'm glad that's over...
    waffles belgian syrup waffles waffles belgian
    waffles belgian syrup waffles waffles belgian
    waffles belgian syrup waffles waffles belgian

  • Removal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:42PM (#11904245)
    Google removed the pages from their indices

    Did they remove all the pages...

    ...Or just all the pages that have been caught so far?

    • Did they remove
      all the pages... ...Or just all the pages that have been caught so far?
      Don't you agree it would be just a little bit difficult to remove the ones they haven't detected yet?

  • Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fade_to_Blah ( 555601 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:42PM (#11904248)
    If Microsoft pulled this same stunt with their new search engine this entire crowd (or most) would be jumping all over them for being evil.

    Google gets the Slashdot "Get out of jail free" card.

    • Re:Microsoft (Score:2, Redundant)

      by bcmm ( 768152 )
      Yes, but Microsoft is evil.
    • If Microsoft got caught doing this, we'd be jumping all over them. Not for doing it, but because the first thing the'd do is try to cover it up, and when that didn't work, the second thing they'd do is claim that it was OK for them to do it because it's their site. Google is getting off easy because they're not making excuses, they're not pretending it didn't happen. Google is cleaning up their act and earning our respect for their honesty.
  • Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency.

    Sounds like the fanboys aro out in force again, but this time on the main page.

    Google is God, whos with me?

  • Could it just be PR? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stubear ( 130454 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:49PM (#11904315)
    "Though the existence of the cloaked pages at all is somewhat questionable, at least Google has responded with integrity and consistency."

    Wow, they removed the pages that were discovered. How many more are there and have these been cleaned up as well?

  • There is no longer any such thing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by talksinmaths ( 199235 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:49PM (#11904319) Homepage
    ...as critical thinking. Didn't anyone see this [slashdot.org] posting from the March 8 comments?
  • Don't get me wrong, I like both Google and Slashdot but with all these google stories popping up these last couple of days makes me feel like I've been caught between the two of them on a first date. I'm trying to keep a straight face, but it's hard to do when they are playing a mean game of footsie, shaking the table all about.

  • In a related development... (Score:5, Funny)

    by windowpain ( 211052 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:57PM (#11904402) Journal
    Bill Gates was spotted on the Microsoft campus in Redmond bent over, pants around his ankles, spanking himself vigorously.

  • Exceptions to the rule... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @05:58PM (#11904427) Homepage Journal
    From TFA:

    Google has made exceptions to its cloaking rule in the past. For example, its crawler views password-protected content in the Google Scholar program that cannot be viewed by broad Web users, and indexes National Public Radio audio transcripts that are unavailable to Web users, Sullivan said.


    Now, take this information along with the earlier issue of the new customization on the news.google.com site, which frequently lists news sites that require registration.

    Those sites serve out different content for the Googlebot than they do for my browser, but obviously Google "makes an exception" in their case.

    And that would be fine by me, if I have the option to disable reporting of such sites in my news.google.com cookie.

  • Do no evil.

  • Google is the best! (Score:3, Funny)

    by grolschie ( 610666 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:16PM (#11904607)
    <Ad by Goooooooogle>

  • The new slashdot (Score:3, Funny)

    by mshiltonj ( 220311 ) <mshiltonjNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:17PM (#11904616) Homepage Journal
    All Google -- All the time.
  • This kind of thing happens once in a while. When you have 100's of folks working on a system, sometimes things slip through that are local optimums that don't look so good from a global level.

    Don't attribute inadvertent slip-ups to some nefarious high level strategy. Even when the culprit is Google or god forbid, Micro$oft.

  • Understanding Complaints (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:24PM (#11904686) Homepage
    I have tried to explain to myself Slashdot skepticism of Google. Here is what I have come up with.

    Google has made a policy: "We're not evil. That's our corporate policy. We're not evil."

    From what I can tell, people respond to this policy in one of two ways:
    • Sympathetic. "We're glad to hear it, Google. We're going to hold you to your claim, but, we're glad to hear it." We can call these people "Google Supporters."
    • Skeptical. "Hm. I've never seen a non-evil Company. Google, you're pretty powerful. We're going to tear you to shreds if you step even slightly out of line." We can call these people "Google Detractors."


    Now, the popular sentiment seems to be sympathetic here.

    However, it's not as sympathetic as it might be.

    I believe the answer is in the psychology of the Google Detractors. My personal belief is that the detractors are experiencing a cognitive dissonance. This is the where you have two ideas in front of you, and they seem to be contradictory.

    Some possible cognitive dissonances:

    • Everybody has at at least some Evil. This is someone who has a yin-yang holism approach to life. If someone puts on a white hat, they get upset. Think of the "True Neutral" druids. When they see someone, like Google, put on a white hat, they go: "Oh, look, a liar." Whenever Google does something, they will be looking for the negative aspects of it, in order to restore consistancy to their life.
    • The Anti-Corporatist. The anti-corporate culture views all corporations [signumpress.com] as necessarily evil. When a corporation says it does no evil, this is a direct challenge to the anti-corporatist, who must either (A) change their notion that all large corporations are necessarily evil, or (B) find fault with Google. These people will, for example, point out that Google censors itself for China, and then say that Google is hypocritical for doing this.


    There are likely other cognitive dissonances that move people to detract from Google, despite it's stellar record.

    Why are we talking about the motives of complaint here, rather than addressing the complaints themselves? Because, to a Google supporter (such as myself,) the complaints are trivially addressed. This is evidenced by the various "Move along, folks, nothing to see here." Since the complaints will not go away once answered, we are left with wondering what is causing the complaints in the first place.

    This is like trying to kill the ghost-generator in Gauntlet, rather than just focusing on the ghosts themselves. You can lob an axe and kill a ghost with ease; It's just that there's so many of them.

    I don't believe we can change the root causes of the cognitive dissonance: Anti-corporate culture, and True Neutrality, to name two.

    Thus we find ourselves in a natural tension zone, of continual evaluation.

    But there is room for strategy and motion within the tension. That is, forces on different sides can make plays that shift the substantially shift the weight of the tension play.

    Please excuse my thinking out loud.
    • Thing is, I know businesses that take an evil route - screw customers, don't worry about recommendations and retention because there will be another sucker along soon, just keep aggressive marketing going.

      On the other hand, there are businesses founded by people who whilst they wanted to make money, also had an interest in creating something. In many cases, they fostered a positive culture.

      I've worked in organisations that turned from evil to good. Rather than being dishonest with customers, they decide

  • This is why... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mrmittens ( 866293 )
    ... I'll continue to use google over MSN Search. Just kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when they do something like this.

    Or it could be that I'm exactly the 'consumer' they aimed this at.

    Either way, my homepage will remain www.google.co.uk!!!

  • This is no big deal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheOnlyCoolTim ( 264997 ) <tim...bolbrock@@@verizon...net> on Thursday March 10, 2005 @06:54PM (#11904976)
    The big deal is that when Greg Duffy published how to trick Google Print into giving you the full text of books, Google responded by erasing GregDuffy.com from the index for a while. That's shady.

    Tim

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