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Suing Google Over Pagerank

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-can't-be-the-first-time dept.

Yardboy wrote in to tell us about a story from Reuters describing a lawsuit by parental advice company Kinderstart.com against Google for 'charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.' Kinderssart claims Google is responsible for 'a "cataclysmic" 70 percent fall in its audience -- and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.' I guess the courts will now decide: Can google taketh what they giveth?

10 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Re:fp by BoomerSooner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How so? What does a private company owe someone who simply wants to be ranked high?

    If they want to be shown they should pay for advertising. My lastname.com is on page 3 if I search for mylastname. So should I sue google? Maybe I should "advertise" since that is how they exist.

    I hate bullshit like this, if you base your business model on a high google ranking you should do what others are to maintain it. Salma Hayek pics are hard to find since those site purveyors have the first 1000 links or so going to some scam *nude stars* sites. lol... maybe that is what i wanted after all ;)

  2. So which is it... by $1uck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA:
    "aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system"
    Is it patented or secret? I mean it can't be both.

  3. Uh... Google can do whatever it wants... by dteichman2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google is a private company with a private database. They have no obligation to rank any site equally, or even at all! In fact, Google could arbitrarily decide that some company was "bad" and simply remove them from their database. Kinderstart has no case, not even with their fractured English. Google is a corporation, not a public service, even though they seem like it on occasion.

    --


    Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
  4. Re:fp by $1uck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The complaint accuses Google, as the dominant provider of Web searches, of violating KinderStart's constitutional right to free speech by blocking search engine results showing Web site content and other communications"
    This is a bullshit suit. I'm sorry you don't have a constitutional right to have your message/voice broadcast/printed/served/displayed by others.

  5. Why? by Parham · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why does this website think it can sue a company for a service it is providing them for free?

    Furthermore, pagerank is explained here and here. Finally, if 70% of their audience and 80% of their revenue SOLELY relies on Google, then they need to change the way they advertise their site and profit from it. Looking at their site, they look just like a plain directory of links; they probably make money from advertising.

  6. Give me a break by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The complaint accuses Google, as the dominant provider of Web searches, of violating KinderStart's constitutional right to free speech by blocking search engine results showing Web site content and other communications.

    Google is a private company. It has no obligation to endorse Kinderstart's company than any others.

    Like I have said before, the constituion gives you a right to freedom of speech, it does not guarentee you an audience. Saying Google should be forced to index Kinderstart *at all*, let alone that it should enfoce some ranking formula, would be akin to saying that a library should be forced to hold a certain book, or that a televsion station be forced to air a certain show.

    Don't like the shows on a network? Change the channel. Don't like the results Google provides? Use another engine. It's not like they have a monopoly on web searching.

    1. Re:Give me a break by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All I'm saying is that private companies CANNOT do whatever they want just because they are private.

      In principle, of course, you're absolutely right -- but the difference is that Microsoft broke the law (and mostly got away with it, grumblings on /. notwithstanding) while Google didn't. There is simply no comparison between Google's behavior as the leading search engine and Microsoft's behavior as the leading OS provider. Google does what successful business are supposed to do: offer a good, popular product or service which people choose to use based on its merits.

      Whether Google actually constitutes a search engine monopoly is an interesting question; given Yahoo's position as a pretty strong number two, I'm inclined to say not, but it might be worthy of a court test one of these days. I really doubt Kinderstart are going to be the ones to make this happen, though.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  7. Shoot Your Lawyer by Detritus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your "constitutional right to free speech" is a restriction on the actions of the federal government, and through incorporation, the states. It does not require any private entity to provide you a forum, listen to you, or to treat you fairly, whatever you think that might mean.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  8. Re:Well, they are spammed with traffic now... by hazem · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But they don't really do anything, other than linking other sites.

    It looks like one of those sites you get when you mispell the name of a website and you end up with some random search. If I hadn't gone there from slashdot, I would have quickly hit the back button for fear of spyware.

  9. Human index isn't the solution by RibRdb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A project with people adding sites to an index? You mean like the open directory (http://dmoz.org/ or even http://www.google.com/dirhp)
    That's definitely the solution. I can always find exactly what I'm looking for with Open Directory, but not with Google.

    Give me a break. Maybe you just need to learn how to search? Or maybe you should click the little link at the bottom of your bad search results that says "Dissatisfied? Help us improve." You won't find that at Yahoo.