Google Antitrust Suit May Go Forward

TechForensics writes "KinderStart, whose page hits and AdSense revenue dropped sharply after changes by Google demoted its appearance in search results, brought suit claiming the search engine effectively suppressed its first amendment rights by lowering the site's visibility. While the Court rejected that argument out-of-hand, it appeared more amenable to KinderStart's argument that since it was a search page, Google's suppression of a rival search engine is prohibited by antitrust laws. The suit may go forward with the judge's commentary."

Comments

Re:I call Bullshit

[LiquidCoooled]

The site tried to claim before that they were a content site and that google unfairly removed them from the results.
However it appeared to everyone with eyes that this site was just a crappy linkfarm/google optimising pile of crap with no reasonable content of its own (it did however appear to use a derivative of slashcode for some of its pages).

Now they are crying that they were a search engine, they are just tosspots crying because google stopped their shit (it was all removed when google refreshed their rules about valid sites and removed thousands of crap from their results).

Re:did google do this?

[GigsVT]

Google admits that humans moved the rank of the site manually. Google is saying that this is their normal MO and that it's their right to do that.

Re:Kinderstart

[BrynM]

What is KinderStart anyway? I searched for it, and it seems that there are plenty of results completely unrelated to the plaintiff.

The real proof in the pudding is how other engines handle it. MSN, Yahoo and even Webcrawler (who has horrid URLS now) list it as the top result. They may be gaming results (since when do kids need NASDAQ?). Despite their cheery presentation, they are a for-profit company as far as I can tell. Google may have cought them doing something fishy. From what their press release page has, they have an activity gap of four years or so, so the pageRank theories people have proposed might have weight as well. I guess we'll find out eventually.

Supression?

[Bogtha]

If Google suppressed other search engines, they might have a point. But Google aren't suppressing other search engines, they simply aren't choosing to promote this particular one. The website still exists.

To use an analogy that people might be more familiar with, this isn't like when Netscape complained Microsoft included Internet Explorer with Windows, this would be like if Netscape demanded that Microsoft included Netscape Navigator with Windows.

And the whole idea that Google are doing this purposefully to kill other search engines is ludicrous, given that Google list plenty of real competitors when you search for "search engine". But somehow this tiny search engine nobody has heard of is worse competition than MSN, etc?

They actually claim that their First Amendment rights are being infringed. For those of you completely unfamiliar with the USA constitution, as their attorney apparently is, the First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Last time I checked, Google not including KinderStart in their index is substantially different from Congress making a law.

Remember: freedom of speech is not the freedom to force your speech on others.

KinderStart are either kooks or publicity-whoring barratry artists, the SCO of search engines.

Searching for "Search Engine" on Google Refutes...

[Taed]

I think that the antitrust argument can be easily refuted by searching for "search engine" on Google. If Google were really manipulating the results (and maybe even if it weren't), you'd expect "Google" to be the first result returned.

But it's not.

In fact, the first three are: Dogpile, AltaVista, and MetaCrawler. The next 10 are: Google UK, Google, MSN, Yahoo, Netscape, HotBot, FreeFind, Lycos, Mamma, and Vivisimo.

So, if they were manipulating results, wouldn't that be an obvious place to start?

Its "don't be evil"

[ems2]

The correct phrase is don't be evil. Check Google's site yourself. It is surprising how many people can get a simple phrase like this incorrect.

how not to get devalued at google ranking

[stas_bekman]

Rather than sueing everybody, why not spend a little time complying with search engine requirements? Sometimes a very little tweak in your site can get your page ranking higher, and in reverse a little thing can get you banned completely. After reading this I've written two articles which others may find useful and improve the quality of the webcontent out there. May be if KinderStart follows those guidelines they could get their ranking back without any fights. Here they are:

1. 12 Things to Do to Improve Your Site's Google Page Rank
   this article covers 12 techniques that will help raise your page rank and move your site to the top of the search hits.
   
2. 12 Things NOT to Do to Improve Your Site's Google Page Rank
   this article covers 12 techniques that must NOT be used if you want your site's Google page rank to be high (and not to get banned)
   

Enjoy!