Search Engines Take Their Time Disclosing Paid Links

An anonymous reader says "This CNN.com article talks about how most search engines have not disclosed the difference between a paid ad and an 'objective' result. The one exception of course is every geek's favorite search engine, Google. Once again, hooray for Google!" We mentioned the FTCs Mandate that search engines be clear about who's paying for what. Apparently all the non-google engines are on vacation ;)

Comments

It's only a recommendation

[Telecommando]

It's not like they're required by law to do it.

Yet.

AHEM

[Telecommando]

It's the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission not the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).

The FTC handles trade, commerce, tariffs, advertising and business practices.
The FCC handles radio & telephone communications policies, standards and practices.

Re:Government Regulation

[Peyna]

Except for that large notice right before the infomercial that states: THIS IS A PAID ADVERTISEMENT AND THE OWNER OF THIS STATION IN NO WAY ENDORSES THE PRODUCT BEING SOLD WITH-IN. Also, they are required to flash "paid advertisement" every so often on the screen, much in the same way that newspapers have to print "paid advertisement" on ads that resemble stories.

Re:Has anyone else noticed this Google problem?

[frankie]

yes, Yes, YES! It is really annoying as hell to see mighty Google getting bombed like this. There's a Hacker Sith Lord out there laughing at us.

If you see this happening in a search result that you care about, please report it either by email (search-quality at google) or by web form.

Here's some of the sites I've seen that are abusing cross-linking to spam Google:

costa-dorada.net
e-bevs.com
elevenacceleration.c om
ije-ir.org
ims-corp.com
indonesiahelp.com
i ndowebdesign.com
kluthe.net
laserprintersbymte.c om
makingmusic.net
myownpoll.com
ocean-press.co m
onesmack.com

Google: Trouble in Paradise

[bareman]

Lately using Google I've been more annoyed to find advertisements at the top of the results list when I have been searching for a quoted string.

Try searching for the following quoted string: "building your own electric car"
and the first link returned today is for autoweb.com. Now, if Autoweb had a resources for building an electric car I would have no problem with their paid ad showing up. Hell, make it first on the list and make animated arrows to it if you like.

BUT you see, autoweb has nothing on the page about ELECTRIC cars, much less about BUILDING a car of any type. No, all they have is a paid advert that hits on the word CAR.

Come to think of it (yep) I just tried "Baby you can drive my car" and there they were. Top-o-the list.

Here's more; you can't even defeat the advert buy specifically trying to exclude the ad by "-buy" or even "-autoweb".

Please GOOGLE gods, return to the good old days where a quoted string only returns sites that have the entire quoted string.