Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 At least everybody came to associate "Bush" with "miserable failure". "Miserable Failure" Bush Rehabilitated 'Miserable failure' Bush rehabilitated as Google steps in to defuse the GooglebombsNicholas CarrThursday February 1, 2007The GuardianIf you've had occasion to do a Google search on the phrase "miserable failure" over the past few years, you've probably found that the top result is the official site for George W Bush's presidency. It's there because of a campaign of "Googlebombing". A lot of people wrote the term "miserable failure" on their personal home pages and then linked it to the White House site. Google's search engine dutifully made the connection.But last week, after years of taking a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward Googlebombing, Google decided to put an end to the popular sport. It incorporated into its search engine a Googlebomb-sniffing algorithm that somehow manages to identify and neutralise any concerted effort to skew search results for a word or phrase.Googlebombing was amusing at first, but it got old fast. So I'm perfectly happy that Google is giving it the heave-ho. It's like scrubbing graffiti off the side of a subway car.But there's a deeper story here, and it lies in Google's explanation for why it finally decided to defuse Googlebombs. You might assume the company was acting out of a desire to present better results, or to counter internet vandalism, or simply to serve the public interest. But you'd be wrong.What drove Google to act was its fear that Googlebombing was tarnishing its painstakingly controlled image.One of the company's top engineers, Matt Cutts, explained the move on a Google blog: "Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven't been a very high priority for us. But over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception." (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)The company is allowing concerns about its public image to influence the search results it dishes up. The upshot in this case may be salubrious, but what kind of precedent is being set here?And, perhaps more important, what does it tell us about what's inside the Google black box that determines how most of us find information on the web most of the time?Three years ago, when Google was first asked about Googlebombing, it gave the corporate equivalent of a shrug. It's not our problem, the company's technology director, Craig Silverstein, told the New York Times. "We just reflect the opinion on the Web, for better or worse."The implication was that Google's search engine was a passive feedback mechanism that reported the public's wisdom - or stupidity - back to the public. Reflecting all the strengths and flaws of democracy, it was the people's machine. Google itself had little control over it. (nytimes.com)The perception of Google as an honest broker, disinterested in the information it presents, remains a popular one. We like to believe that "we the people" control what comes out of Google's mouth.But while that may have been true once, and while it was in fact one of the company's founding ideals, it's not so true any more.Google's search engine originally worked according to a simple principle: web pages were ranked according to the number of links they received from other sites, with each link weighted to reflect a site's popularity. That principle is still part of the equation, but Google's software has become much more complicated over the years.Its search engine operates according to an array of sophisticated and secret algorithms crafted by the company's brilliant coders.It's a machine that's been tweaked to do precisely what Google instructs it to do, even if that might mean filtering results to protect the company's reputation.Google may have good in its heart. It may, for the time being anyway, be fighting on our behalf to bring order to a chaotic internet. But let's not forget that Google's machine is not our machine. It's Google's, for better or worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishtaper Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 i dont think anyone who actually enjoyed these would be offended, or think less of google, and nobody would have ever stumbled upon them. the company's decision to stop it seems odd. i dont buy the "cant have our image tarnished" excuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey Boy 2.0 Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 i guess time will tell if the old Power Corrupts adage will take over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 (edited) you should check out the controversy surrounding the alleged censorship of images of Basra in Google Earth. edit - by extrapolation you could argue this could happen anywhere else.Keep in mind there are tons of Chicken Littles that don't understand Google Earth, aerial imagery or virtual globes, but the writer of the following articles is definitely a sharp dude. He knows what he's talking about and can express it better than most. Read this first Read this second Read this third Read this last Very very interesting topic, in my mind since this is kinda my industry, about censorship, spatial data, government involvement, and Google's ethos and branding. Edited February 1, 2007 by Guest extrapolation, what what Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted February 5, 2007 Report Share Posted February 5, 2007 Well, nobody cares, but India wants Google to blur locations as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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