Google, journalism and being evil ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lars Poulsen <lars () beagle-ears com>
Date: August 5, 2005 8:19:09 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Google, journalism and being evil ...


Dave, for IP if you wish.

Yesterday, my business partner alerted me to this story on
webpronews (among his several hats, he does search engine
optimization for our company's website). This echoes in
interesting ways with the recent stories about Google taking
revenge on journalists that embarrass Google.

I found the same pattern described in the article when I
searched on Google and MSN for "Google Microsoft Dr Lee lawsuit",
so the effect is fairly robust.

/ Lars Poulsen

-----------------------------------------

http://www.webpronews.com/insidesearch/insidesearch/  
wpn-56-20050804MSNGooglesDrLeeLawsuitSERPsVastlyDifferent.html

MSN, Google's Dr. Lee Lawsuit SERPs Vastly Different

Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer | 2005-08-04


As everybody in the Google and Microsoft camps has been Kai-Fu  
fighting, the logical thing to relay to you this morning was the  
report that Google anticipated a lawsuit and was prepared to pay Dr.  
Lee, lawsuit or not, work or not, for up to a year. But as I was  
searching for these court documents, I came across something very  
interesting. MSN and Google are delivering search results about the  
case with opposing messages. Hmmmmm.

If you've read the Dogpile report that search results across the  
major search engines only had a 1.1% overlap, then it is not  
surprising that results may vary. But this variation is somewhat  
suspect when you consider the players involved.

When the search terms "Dr. Lee court documents Google Microsoft" were  
entered into Google, the majority of results were emblazoned with the  
phrase "lawsuit is a charade" in large comforting letters, repeated  
again again again.

That's interesting, I thought. I wonder what MSN returns?

As I suspected, there was one link, in the middle, with the "charade"  
reference. The rest were to the tune of "Microsoft wins round against  
Google," and "Ex-Microsoft Exec Barred From Google Job."

Could this be a coincidence? Or is this brilliant PR algorithmic  
manipulation?

Next, I did what any fair researcher would do, I check Yahoo! for a  
control group. Yahoo! seemed fairly balanced on the matter and  
delivered the most current listings-including #3 result for  
WebProWorld discussion, thank you.

Here are the screen caps, submitted for your perusal. And just for  
efficiency, here's your link to WebProWorld for discussion.

...



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