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Suing Google Over Pagerank
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?
Kinderstart, realizing their website sucks, announces a lawsuit against Google for a detrimental impact to their website traffic. Website activity jumps 3000% on the news, mainly from a nerd news site reporting the lawsuit. Slashdot is credited with a 120% increase in revenue for nerds that now know how to raise their kids.
-- NeonRonin
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
From TFA:
"aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system"
Is it patented or secret? I mean it can't be both.
They have been astroturfing all over the place and I don't see any actual content pages.
They advertise themselves as a search engine.
Google still indexes over 25000 pages by them, and from my initial examination, theres no content.
They appear to be just a linkfarm
Google aren't wrong, this kind of thing is what we have been asking them to do for ages (clear out the crap)
liqbase
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.
"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.
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.
And Microsoft won't say how their operating system works, I'll sue Bill Gates and demand the source code. Anyway, KinderStart seems to be another linkfarm, that's why they are ranked so low.
They have since cleaned up their site . . . but they were using every type of outmoded, pseudo seo hacks - alt tag spamming, invisible #FFFFFF links at the bottom of their pages pointing to keyword spam duplicate pages ad nauseum
So don't whine if you get back slapped
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.
If this lawsuit fails, they plan to sue everyone who isn't one of their customers for depriving them of revenue.
English is easier said than done.
If Google opened its pagerank, then the order of search results would be the cleverness of the webmasters to craft their webpage to exploit Google's methods, instead of actual relevence to the search involved. You'd prefer that situation? Google would effectively denigrate into a giant billboard, and you'd then have to search through dozens of useless 'advertising' false links to get to the information you really want.
make world, not war
you can see how their traffic started falling here
SecurityPub.com
SearchKing sued Google over the same thing a couple of years ago, and lost the suit. The judge's comment was:
KinderStart will lose. Case closed.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
They aren't suing because of bad rankings. They are suing because Google wont say why it ranks some sites hight and bans other sites. There is more merit in this case than most would think.
Google chooses not to reveal its pagerank algorithms precisely to prevent the kind of link-bombing in which Kinderstart was almost certainly engaged. And why should they? This is one of the few cases where "security through obscurity" kinda works -- unlike with, say, encryption algorithms, which depend for security on a secret number, and which generally get stronger when they're open for public scrutiny, the security of Google's page rankings depends on the secrecy of the algorithm itself. They have no obligation to reveal their algorithm to Kinderstart or anyone else.
Now, as a generally pro-F/OSS guy, I personally think it would be great if Google came up with "public key pagerank" -- i.e., a pagerank algorithm that could be released as open source without compromising its effectiveness for a specific application -- but apparently that hasn't happened yet.
If anyone has a case here, it's Google; they could sue Kinderstart and everyone else who tries to manipulate the rankings, and probably under the DMCA they could press criminal charges as well. They don't, for two reasons: it would interfere with the warm'n'fuzzy "don't be evil" vibe they're still trying to project, and it would be a waste of time and money, in that they'd probably spend a lot more trying to track down the thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions?) of sites that try to do this crap than they would collect in damages. But personally I hope they turn around and grind Kinderstart.com into the dust.
BTW, the first search result that comes up on Google when you search for "Kinderstart" now is this, which seems like a legitimate business rather than a badly designed wannabe portal. How is this a bad thing?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm not saying realease the algorithms they use, just reply to an e-mail and say "You have been banned from google search because you have violated our guidelines (insert vague reasons here)"
"Google does not generally inform Web sites that they have been penalized nor does it explain in detail why the Web site was penalized,"
Sometimes they do and sometimes then dont
SecurityPub.com
IIRC It was already upheld in a court that search results and rankings were officially considered "opinion", and as such was constitutionally-protected free speech.
If my opinion is that your site sucks, you can't sue me for that.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Why are they going after google? This seems more like the web designers fault, and not google's problem.
Being as vague as possible, I once did some work for a company who loved the results I was getting them in their page ranking. Then, one of the 'managers' came up and said that one person was complaining about the design of the site. I tried for a week to explain that any changes would result in a drastic drop in our page rank. I've actually studied the google patent filing, and was able to learn some important details that were used in the site constructively to help the ranking.
Since it wasnt my company, all I could do was explain what I thought the results of this decision would be. I ended up 'changing' the page layout to satisfy the clueless management, onlt to see a 15% drop in traffic and a fall from 6/10 to 4/10 in page ranking on google. Did I try to say it was google's fault? Hell no! I knew exactly where the blame was to be placed, and I vocally explained what was going on, why it was going on, and whos decision it was to make this change.
Suprisingly, they no longer question my ability to do my job. And that was shortly followed by a raise after I pointed out that I was very disapointed that I had to associate my name with such crappy performance, that was a result of poor decisions I warned against. And yes, it is VERY difficult to regain page ranking. But not impossible, unless of course your page uses every nasty trick in the book for optimization.
But the part about this company filing a lawsuit against google based on free speech? Is that a joke? It sounds like the lawyers this company hired are about as incompetent as their web designers.
Let me get this straight...
1) Private company freely provides service
2) It is found useful by individuals and companies for finding one another
3) Its use becomes wide-spread and significant in the success of companies (maybe)
4) One particular company sues provider of this free service for not catering to them
Not that this is the first one to bite the hand that feeds.
I'm suing Kinderstart for not linking to me.
The PageRank algorithm is patented (patent 6,285,999) and public.
But Google's results are much more than page rank. It also involves other algorithms relating to the search keys for a particular search. And there are tuning factors to the particular PageRank implementation. Google's proprietary tweaks keep ahead of the people who try to artificially inflate their page rank (like, apparently, these guys). Those are secret, and search engine optimizers would dearly love to know them so that they could fake out Google.
http://www.kinderstart.com:8080/kindertoday/114264 8153
The funny thing is, it looks like they are using slash!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
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
Yale is suing U. S. News and World Report for unfairly depriving the university of applicants by downgrading its overall ranking to #3, having formerly ranked it as tied with Harvard for #1, without reason or warning...
Pluto is suing the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City for depriving it of attention by school children by downgrading its status from "planet" to "biggest object in the Kuiper belt," without reason or warning...
and Texas is suing Alaska for unfairly depriving it of bragging rights by downgrading its rank among states listed by area, without reason or warning.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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.
It is ironic and funny to think that this news is getting kinderstart.com slashdotted right now.
I doubt, therefore I might be.
I'm suing the moderators for depriving me of my right to free speech by not modding this comment up, without reason or warning!
Funnily enough http://www.kinderstart.co.uk/seems to be a valid site promoting a chain of nursery schools in the UK. It comes at the very top of google.co.uk's list when you search for "kinderstart". Google just seem to have downranked the US site because it's a junk link, providing no-one with any useful information, which is exactly what they should have done! Hope the suit gets thrown out and the judge orders them to pay Google's costs.
Didn't RTFA, and this is probably redundant and trolling, but you best mod me up or I'll sue!
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Looks like a human being (at google) checked the site. I just did too, and found absolutely no meaningful content on it whatsoever. In fact, every link I clicked took me to some place where I could spend money, thus compensating kinderstart for the referral.
:)
This is known as a "clicktrap" and (imho) is the most annoying thing in the world to happen upon.
People use Google because your chances of finding what you want, quickly are good. I.e. being taken directly to the "end of the line" , either right to a store itself, or to an article, or something else related to your search. Not to one of the stupid internet polluting man in the middle wastes of disk space.
You can go to a site like shitlance and pay someone from India a few hundred bucks to arrange hundreds of lasting (and good) backlinks. Search that site for "SEO" and you'll see what I mean.
Off my soapbox
Mod Parent (-1, Wrong)
No, Google is a public company. You see there's this obscure institution called the "stock market"...
No, Google offered some shares to be exchanged on a particular market, making them a publically traded company, but they are in fact, a private entity all the same. In this short review of high school level Social Studies, the public sector is the Government, and the private sector is everything else. The unrelated term "publically traded" simply means that there are no buyer restrictions on who may own or trade their stocks. There is such a thing as stocks that are not publically traded as well.
Regardless of the trading of their stock certificates in the marketplace, Google does not gain some new requirement to rank companies/sites according to anyone elses wishes on how they should be ranked.
~Rebecca
Google is a competitor is it not? If you visit http://www.kinderstart.com you will see that it offers itself as a search engine.
_ __________
I think Google should sue them though. If I type "google" into their search engine all I get is:
Home : Search Results
_________________________________________________
Results for 'google' (0 matches found).
Page 1 of 1
I think the forum has made it clear that Google, as a private company (though "publicly traded") has no obligations to Kinderstart under the First Amendment, so their lawsuit is bunk. BUT Kinderstart did a good think for their business by suing Google. How many people here after looking at this article looked at Kindercrap.com too see what it is? Would any of us have gone there otherwise? So the lawsuit is going to easily die very quickly, but suing Google gets you on the front page of the news! It even got the company some free advertising here on Slashdot of all places!
After that comment I had to go look.
Here it was I thought they were producing something, or selling something (hence the terms 'customers' and 'revenue').
Nope. Just a big-ass referral site, sucking down affiliate fees for driving real customers to real sites that sell real stuff.
Now I understand why Google k-lined them.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
What does a private company owe someone who simply wants to be ranked high?
Um, Google is a public company.
However, public or private, Google isn't required to reveal their methods as those methods could qualify as a trade secret. If you try to haul Coke into court and demand they hand over their formulae, what do you think would happen? (besides the judge giggling, snickering, and laughing as though they are wearing feathered underwear under their black robe.
If they don't like the way they're ranked, they have several choices: (a) pound sand, (b) rely upon other search services, (c) take a timeout in the corner, (d) hire a spammed service which promises to put them in the top 100.[1] And in fact, this last item may be why they're acting like their tail is being twisted: they hired someone to rank it, it either failed or was short-liived, and the service they hired said it was Google's fault. I could accept option (d) without too much arm-twisting. "Hey, we did our part. Google screwed you over."
They're mad because they've got a Field of Dreams problem. Everyone thinks they have the next perpetual machine and they'll have to reinforce their doors because people will be knocking them down. No one shows up, no one cares, and after a good crying jag, they figure someone's going to pay for it. After all, they did their part correctly so someone else screwed up.
I've got some advice for them handed down many, many years ago: "No matter how good a product is, the market can be cruel & harsh." If they self-publish a book, are they going to sue the various chains because they won't put it on the shelves? And if the book manages to get onto the various shelves and it doesn't sell, are they going to sue the bookstores?
[1] I still snicker at the logic of placement spam: "Guaranteed to make your site ranked in the top 100 of the following search engines:..." Even if they manage to accomplish this, they don't tell you how long you'll remain there. Simply put: if 1'000 people respond to this ad for a single blast of spam (and the service is legitimate in its efforts), how can all of them be guaranteed top 100 placement? Then look at how many people are spamming this service. For some reason, this logic escapes many who believe themselves to be intelligent.
The bottom line? After the judge stops laughing, it should be dismissed via summary judgement, demand gorilla glue to be liberally applied to each person's head, then lodge it into their tucus.