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Is Santorum's "Google Problem" a Google Problem?

theodp writes "Fortune contributor Dan Mitchell argues that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google problem' isn't Google's problem at all. 'The fact that searching for 'santorum' puts the profane, anti-Rick Santorum site SpreadingSantorum.com (NSFW) at the top of Google's search results,' insists Mitchell, 'is not an example of a "Google bomb," despite the widespread use of that term to describe the result.' In the same camp is Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan, who also says that Santorum has a search engine problem, not a Google problem. 'It's just that everyone fixates on Google,' Sullivan adds. Which is perhaps to be expected, since Google is the King of Search and also has ties to SpreadingSantorum creator Dan Savage, having featured the sex-advice columnist in Google's The-web-is-what-you-make-of-it Chrome ad campaign (for Savage's admirable It Gets Better Project, not SpreadingSantorum). So, considering Google's vaunted search quality guidelines, is some kind of change in order? Sullivan, while making it clear he opposes Santorum's views, nonetheless suggests Google is long overdue to implement a disclaimer for the 'Santorum' search results. 'They are going to confuse some people,' he explains, 'who will assume Google's trying to advance a political agenda with its search results.'"

2 of 775 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Good point. From now on, an incompetent affirmative action hire will be known as an "obama".

    And an incompetent legacy admission will be known as a "bush".

  2. Re:Cyberbullying by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nobody is name calling. They just added another, probably unwanted meaning to his name.

    If you look into why SpreadingSantorum and Savage's definition came to be(noting of course that this happened MANY years ago, long before Santorum was running for anything) you'll see that there is actually a political criticism in the new definition.

    Santorum was openly gay-bashing and dehumanizing homosexuals from his position in the government. Savage, as a homosexual journalist, wasn't going to stand for it so he wrote at length about how Santorum was wrong, and to remind people of Santorum's inhumane - basically evil - position on homosexuality, he coined the term Santorum as the frothy mixture.

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits