Slashdot Mirror
Searchking Loses Suit Against Google
An anonymous reader submits this story that Searchking has lost its suit against Google for lowering search rankings. Silly lawsuit, good riddance. See our original story.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Search for "search engine" at Google...hmmm maybe they should sue themselves?
...do you think that this would happen?
A lawsuit that ended in a positive way. Sheesh, why can't that happen more often? :)
"SearchKing never broke a law, yet was accused, judged and executed without so much as a notice of intent. This affected thousands of innocent people without just cause."
There's no dispute that they didn't break any laws. But if I recall, didn't Search King manipulate the Google page rank system to artificially inflate their own rank? Google must have a ToS clause for that sort of thing.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
searchking should sue their web designer first... before i do ahhh my eyes! the goggles, they do nothing!
Efren Belizario
headspeak.com
*sniffle* *sniffle* mr. judge... google won't pick me first even after i paid other people to act like i am a good choice... can you punish them and help me get picked first again!!! *sniffle* *sniffle* -searchking
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
Did you read the article? This had nothing to do with patents or copyrights, it had to do with SearchKing getting pissed because Google was reducing the rank of its links. Even the article synopsis indicates it's not about patents: "...a suit that alleged the company manipulated search results in its powerful Web index."
The judge dismissed the case because Google's system "constitutes opinions protected by the First Amendment."
SearchKing wanted to be "restored to its previous PageRank and to be awarded $75,000 in damages."
The jury was intimidated by the pigeon mafia.
---
Jedimom.com, choo choo choosing you!
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Somehow this just reminds be of The Simpsons and Mr Plow vs Plow King...
from the article: Of course it's not a complete loss. SearchKing has received more attention with this lawsuit than they ever would have on their own business merits. That's part of why suing a big player like google or IBM is so lucrative even when your case is so flimsy. Attention whores.
Long live the King [of Searching]!
While the lawsuit was dismissed by the court, Google had to restore (voluntarily) the Searchking rankings. That means those damn search engine spammers can continue their evil doings. :( Google tried to adapt its system to abuse, but failed. Unfortunately, it seems that the more important Google becomes, the less freedom they will have to arbitrarily change (fine-tune) the system. Users lose as usual. :(
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Silly lawsuit, good riddance.
Frivols, SCO is next.
GNS/Linux is not SCO!
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually SearchKing got pissed after Google changed the rules in reaction to SearchKing abusing the ranking system in the first place.
:)
It's like a crybaby screaming because his parents realized he found a way to the cookie jar and finally locked the cupboard door... and it's quite sad that complains like these are allowed to made it to court and waste justice time...
Good thing they lost anyway. Sorry SearchKing, go find another business model
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Make sure you check out the response from the CEO of SearchKing (and probably the only employee):
http://gooogle.searchking.com
Juicy tidbits:
"Of course we are dissappointed with the judge's decision to dismiss the preliminary injunction, but it was not unexpected. We knew this was a case of a highly technical nature and that educating the court with only the short filings allowed would be very difficult."
"It was about the abuse of power. SearchKing never broke a law, yet was accused, judged and executed without so much as a notice of intent. This affected thousands of innocent people without just cause."
And then, the letter, the whole thing is so good that you just HAVE to read it in its entirety.
The fallacy?
Assigning a monetary value to pagerank.
SearchKing believes they can set a price on the value of a pagerank and sell it to consumers (by using appropriate technology investment to increase the pagerank value). However, 1) Google has not granted resale right to this entity, and more importantly 2) it is too volatile to monetize. It's like trying to predict the % change at close of penny stocks.
Google is under no obligation to stabilize this "good", which then helps SearchKing capitalize on it.
It may seem (at first) that one could assign a monetary value to pagerank because (at least for popular sites) pagerank is relatively stable with respect to other sites of similar popularity. But the reason why a site achieves page rank is because of popularity.
By attempting to inflate a site's pagerank through a monetary transaction (thus using artificial methods), you are essentially trying to buy popularity with money. Unfortunately, paying SearchKing won't make other people like your site more, so that transaction won't work (unless SearchKing can make everyone visit the site in question, and then like it).
I think SearchKing and its employees' grasp on reality is a little bit deficient.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I thought this was a really fun lawsuit. Basically Search King is upset that Google found a way to counter Search King's manipulation of the algorithm. This is like a shop lifter suing the kwikimart for putting the cigarettes behind the counter where they are out of reach.
Yes, not being able to manipulate the results hurts Search King. Google's changing the results helped those who weren't in the SEO business. Thank goodness a judge tossed out the case. Let's hope more suits get thrown out in the future.
This site:
http://www.traffic-power.com
will get caught, and their sites moved down.
They manipulate content in web sites to link to thier own servers which then link back to the site, artificially increasing their rank.
check this "secret" page for sites, go to one and look at the source.
http://www.traffic-power.com/r
Bastards
Actually, that's not true. If you read the actual judgement here , you'll find that the strongest argument centered around patents, in the following vein:
(1) Google claimed its rankings were opinion and thus protected by the First Amendment.
(2) Search King claimed that they couldn't be opinions precisely because Google holds a patent on the process used to make them.
(3) The judge found Search King's argument "not wholly without merit" (p. 6), but that Google could still alter the result of that patented process in a subjective manner and thus it was protected as free speech.
The critical argument by Search King (p. 5):
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
wish i could have got drugs that good back in the day.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Hello? He filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that it committed improprieties. He called Google a monopoly and said that its actions were intended to squash competition. He's wrongfully accused Google of breaking a variety of laws and then has the audicity to claim that he's the victim?
A wake-up call: SearchKing was never accused of anything. Bob Massa publically stated that SearchKing was selling links in an attempt to boost his customers' PageRanks; a practice explicitly forbidden by Google (as described here):
This is obviously Google's prerogative and, moreover, what's best for Google's users (and the Internet) as a whole. So while SearchKing CEO Bob Massa is whining about Google attempting "to restrict the legal business of another without due process" and the "thousands of innocent people" that have suffered because of this decision, the truth of it is that he's the one trying to restrict the legal business of another and reduce the usability of Google, thereby negatively affecting the vast majority of Internet users.
That cements the asshole part. The cluelessness is even easier to prove. The lawsuit obviously never had a leg to stand on and everyone knew it. And while some might attribute it to a shrewd marketing move by Massa, it's garnered only niche coverage and a lot of negative publicity; the inevitable loss has effectively ended his business of attempting to sell PageRank and cost him legal fees besides. He releases a settlement offer, too, which means he either expects us to believe that this suit was ever about a noble endeavor to better the Internet or he honestly believed that there exists some legal standard by which he might've won the case. Yet more evidence: his settlement offer demands that Google put sites who have broken Google's terms of service on notice -- but Google's policy concerning people trying to artificially inflate PageRank is both obvious and public. His whole settlement offer would be laughable if it weren't so tragically stupid.
My vote, then, is that Bob Massa is both clueless and a complete asshole. This ought to be a poll, really.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
This is not even reminiscant of a valid argument.
The CEO of Google could, perfectly within his rights, "hit the switch" right now . That's it; no more Google. Format the drives, massive eBay auction of the servers, and store the software safely in a vault for all eternity. By the logic above, that would "break" all of these businesses who, for whatever inexplicable reason are relying solely on Google's free services for their page hits. (Did I emphasize that enough? Free? Free. FREE !). Nobody has any right to be included in Google's database, likewise nobody has the right to demand that any site be removed from Google's database.
There's a concept in business known as "advertising". It is something that must be accounted for in a business plan, budgetted for annually, forecasted for the future and carefully considered at all times. Simply submitting your URL to an online form and hoping you get a good PageRank is NOT how a business advertises; it's how homepages and Blogs advertise.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.