SearchDay is our free daily e-mail summarizing the day's search marketing news. See example.

January 12, 2010

Google Considering China Pullout in the Wake of Suspected Government Hacking

Many in the West reacted negatively when Google kowtowed to the Chinese government's demands to censor its Chinese search engine Google.cn. At the time Google said that it would monitor conditions in the country and make adjustments in policy as necessary.

Looks like that time has come.

Agents who may have been working on behalf of the the Chinese government have apparently attempted a coordinated hacking attack against Google and over a dozen other major corporations. In Google's case it seems like the purpose was to access email accounts of suspected anti-government activists.

In light of this situation Google has chosen to stop self-censoring its search engine results, and may very well have to shut down it's China operations.

Read the official Google press release here.

Posted by Tim Ash at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

October 10, 2009

Wake Up! - The FTC is screwing with bloggers

If you are a blogger in the US your life is about to change big-time.

You have just entered the Twilight Zone...

New FTC guidelines (read full version) described in the official press release state:

1 - "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

and

2 - the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement - or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media."

My reading of this is very disturbing.

Here is a possible scenario:

You - a "social media" "celebrity" "blogger" (this is anyone who has more than a few followers on Twitter or some number of subscribers to their blog RSS feed) reviews a book, product, or service - making it an "endorsement"
You got a copy of the book to review, or got a free trial of the product, or a free trial of the service
You did not mention the freebie in your blog post
If someone does not like your blog posting you can be sued

To try to regulate bloggers as if they were professional journalists or compensated endorsements is asinine (incidentally - these guidelines do not apply to professional journalists!) The FTC is trying a land-grab into Internet regulation so they can extend their bureaucratic tentacles and justify their continued existence and funding. All of this is being done under the slogan of their official tagline "Protecting America's Consumers". This of course begs the questions - "from whom?"

This is a screwy world we live in, but the whole premise of blogging on the Internet is predicated on the notion that anyone can have frank and open discussions about any topic of their choosing. Most bloggers do not get paid and do not make any money directly or indirectly from their blogging efforts. They try to build their reputation and disseminate information that their followers may find useful. They never claim to be "objective" and often hold very strong, peculiar, and very personal opinions.

It has always been "buyer beware" on the Internet. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that we should carefully consider the source and reputation of any information that we encounter online. We certainly don't need a chilling effect on the whole online conversation from a huge government agency.

It is ironic that this is happening under the direction of a man who was elected with the strong support of the Internet community and specifically active social media leaders. Unfortunately typical liberal-leaning tendencies are also to regulate people's lives via the government in order to protect them against unscrupulous big-business practices.

Don't get me wrong - frankly I don't care if the assault on individual liberties comes from the left or right (the four FTC commissioners who voted unanimously for the new guideline were all appointed by Bush). But I do care when big brother injects themselves into normal Internet discourse this heavy-handedly.

Fight this unconstitutional over-reach - these are simply regulations from unelected bureaucrats within the executive branch.

Let's make our voices heard and protect the First Amendment and our ability to have unfettered discourse without fear of lawsuits online.

BTW - no one paid me to "endorse" this position on the new FTC regulations - I guess that my butt is now legally covered (at least for this blog post).

Posted by Tim Ash at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

July 1, 2009

Overstock Drops Affiliates in NC, RI, HI and CA

Overstock is the next company to drop affiliate programs in states considering or having passed affiliate nexus bills. While North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Hawaii affiliates are already seeing programs dropped by Amazon and Blue Nile, this time California affiliates are also getting the boot.

"It's painful to have to terminate these relationships with affiliates, simply because they live in states where counterproductive (and likely unconstitutional) laws are being passed," said Patrick Byrne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Overstock.com. "However, politicians have to remember that a tax is a price that government charges for a service, and when they raise their prices, we're going to buy less of their services."

Last year, Overstock was one of over 200 companies to drop their affiliate program in New York, which was the first state to enact an affiliate tax. The cancellation affected 3,400 affiliates, 200 of which were active.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2009

Amazon Cuts Rhode Island, Hawaii Affiliates; Is California Next?

We've been tracking the affiliate tax debacle involving Amazon and the state of North Carolina. Now, affiliates in more states are being affected.

Associates in Rhode Island and Hawaii are receiving emails notifying them of the cancellation of their affiliate accounts. Rhode Island passed a bill making affiliates consist of a physical location for web retailers, which forces them to pay sales tax in the state. Hawaii is considering a similar bill.

Blue Nile, a diamond company has also shut down its program to Rhode Island residents.

On the horizon is the state of California, another state considering an affililate tax bill, sometimes referred to as affiliate nexus.

New York was the first state to pass such a bill, which went into effect last summer. 200 affiliate programs were canceled for New York residents as a result.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 16, 2009

Federal Court Dismisses Online Travel Hotel Tax Suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has dismissed a suit brought forth by Pitt County, North Carolina (Greenville, NC is located there for those who are NC-challenged) to charge online travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity for hotel occupancy taxes.

The ruling used an NC state sales tax statute for support of its decision. G.S. 105-164.4 says that online travel sites are not hotel retailers that could be subject to the tax.

This is good news for consumers, as they would essentially be taxed twice. If the ruling had gone the other way, no doubt the taxes would be passed onto the consumer.

Art Sackler, Executive Director of the Interactive Travel Services Association said, "Online travel companies work hard to bring visitors and tourism dollars to cities and hotels around the country. Since they do not manage or operate hotels, motels or other lodging establishments, the online travel companies are not liable for occupancy taxes on the reservation services they provide to the local tourism industries."

Pitt County's real problem is having enough to attract tourism dollars in the first place. East Carolina University is likely the biggest tourism money maker, but a weak football season could hinder the number of dollars spent there.

Promoting ECU's medical center is a more consistent means of bringing in the dough. Also, offering incentives for companies to operate in the county (i.e. research + university = good) could give an overall boost to the tax revenue. Good companies could also boost travel tax dollars when people travel to make business deals go down in the home of the purple and gold Pirates.

Still, cities around the country seem intent on addressing the problem from the wrong end. And different court districts are bringing different decisions. A judge in Texas granted a motion to file suit by San Antonio. Houston is also going after online travel taxes.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2008

Civil Complaint Brought Against Mark Cuban for Insider Trading Regarding Mamma.com

Fox Business is reporting that a civil complaint has been brought against Mark Cuban for insider trading regarding "The Mother of All Search Engines" Mamma.com, which is owned by Copernic (CNIC).

Cuban learned that the company would be issuing a PIPE: a public investment and private equity. In other words, they were about to issue an additional stock sale. When he learned about it, he sold his stake, about 600,000 shares before the public announcement. He avoided losses of $750,000.

If the charges Cuban will have to give back the money with interest.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 1, 2008

Online Travel Industry Having Tax Problems

There seems to be a few cities in Texas that want the online travel industry to ante up millions of dollars in lost tax revenues - and there is a possibility this could move to the other states. Houston and San Antonio - guess Dallas would be next if the decider is towns with NBA teams - have filed suit against online travel companies for not paying the right amount of occupancy taxes dues.

"Hotels in Houston must remit to the city the hotel-occupancy tax of 7 percent, based on the price at which they sell rooms. The city uses the money to promote tourism and to pay off debt for Reliant Stadium, Toyota Center, Minute Maid Park and the Hilton Americas convention hotel".

'The city took in more than $57 million in the occupancy taxes in 2007," a Houston City official told the Houston Chronicle.

"On Tuesday, a federal judge granted San Antonio's motion for class-action certification in its lawsuit against 16 companies including Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Priceline.com and Orbitz. The San Antonio suit alleges the online companies collect hotel tax at the retail rate but only pay taxes on the bulk wholesale rate they are charged, " WebProNews reported

Obviously the travel industry is claiming increased costs will have an impact on tourism. That is absolutely true, while the local governement may not collect the taxes and does lose - the money comes in the pockets of those who visit and thus the average spend of the customers will be less. So maybe the local chamber of commerces should think about that and talk to the mayor.

Bookings will be down slightly because of higher prices - even though the prices will just increase across the board so people will not recognize the jump. Either way in a time of high gas prices actions like this will only hurt the travel industry as a whole. There are not many travel agencies left and few would be looking to invest in one right now.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 22, 2008

Ebay Suing Craigslist For 'Diluting Investment' In Company

Minority interest holder, EBay is taking Craigslist to court for actions that have yet to specify have "diluted" their investment, the New York Times reported.

NYT reported: “The recent actions by the Craigslist directors have disadvantaged eBay and its investment in Craigslist,” said Mike Jacobson, eBay's senior vice president and general counsel, in a written statement. “Since negotiating our investment with Craigslist's board in 2004, we have acted openly and in good faith as a minority shareholder, so we were surprised by these recent unilateral actions. We are asking the Delaware court to rescind these recent actions in order to protect eBay's stockholders and preserve our investment.”

Sort of like the Coke commercial. What actions will be interesting to know given the wise stewardship the Craigslist officers have shown over the years. Though their continued mainly free service may not be popular with investors, it is a well-used and enjoyed destination for many web users.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:58 PM | Permalink

January 30, 2008

Is EU Softening On Online Activites, Acquisitions

Seems the European Union is becoming more sensitive to the workings of the internet. Recent rulings have changed their once strong position about its impact on Europe and its people.

Recent reports tell that they are ready to approve the acquisition of DoubleClick by Google - regardless of what had previously been thought to be a move closer to an online monopoly.

The latest is their decision not to make ISPs give the information of users who have used P2P software for sharing files, a battle that has been fought globally for copyright issues of music and film.

"The European Union's highest court ruled this week that Internet service providers in the EU do not have to give entertainment companies the names of Web users suspected of illegal file sharing.

Internet service providers only have to disclose the names of suspects in criminal cases, not in civil lawsuits, the EU court upheld.

EU countries generally provide consumers a broad range of privacy protections," AVN reported today.

It will be worth watching how these new decisions change the internet legal landscape in Europe.

Posted by Frank Watson at 10:09 PM | Permalink

January 21, 2008

Ripoff Report Legal Problems: Dissection Of Culpability Online

Sarah Bird, a recent addition to the SEOMoz crew, has shown us that her legal education was not wasted. Her article today about the legal problems RipOff Reports faces is truly insightful.

The value in this piece of indepth analysis is what it can teach all website owners about what they are legally responsible for. Read it and take notes.

Posted by Frank Watson at 9:03 PM | Permalink

January 11, 2008

Is the AdWords Competitor-bidding Party Over?

1-800-Contacts is trying to force a legal ruling that could put a chill on the widespread practice of PPC advertisers bidding on competitors' trademarks.

According to this article in MediaPost:

IN THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF a marketer suing about search ads, 1-800-Contacts this week filed a lawsuit in federal court against LensWorld for purchasing search links triggered by the term "1-800-contacts." The company, which has brought several other similar cases, says it's trying to guard against confusion. "The worry that they have is that these advertising methods will make consumers think there's an affiliation between these other companies and our client," said 1-800-Contacts' lawyer, Bryan G. Pratt.

Many advertisers experience great conversion results bidding on competitor terms, so the impact on the search advertising community as a whole could be huge.

Posted by David Szetela at 8:17 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2007

Search Records Requests under Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional

Yesterday controversial elements of the Patriot Act were ruled unconstitutional by federal district court judge Victor Marrero. The Patriot Act, passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, broadly expanded the government's powers to conduct anti-terrorism investigations. In its original form the Patriot Act granted the FBI, among other things, the power to issue “national security letters” (NSLs) that would compel search engines, ISPs, phone companies, libraries and other public sources of information to turn over their customer records. Because the Patriot Act also permanently barred targets from disclosing to their customers that information had been requested, we have no idea how many of these requests have been made to search engines. We do know that thousands of NSLs have been issued in service to counter terrorism efforts.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled portions of the Patriot Act unconstitutional. Marrero said the non disclosure provisions for NSL recipients violated their First Amendment rights (freedom of speech). He also ruled that the process for issuing the letters undercuts the role of the courts, a violation of the principle of separation of powers under the Constitution. This is not the first challenge to the broad provisions of the Patriot Act. A previous ruling in 2004 resulted in revisions when the Patriot Act was renewed this year that give recipients of the letters a limited right to challenge in court the non disclosure gag orders.

The NSL has been a popular counter-terrorism tool since it can be issued without court approval or subpoena. It has, however, been the subject of substantial controversy and criticism.

It is expected that the Justice Department will strongly challenge yesterday's ruling. The lawsuit which resulted in this ruling was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and for those with a legal interest or extreme insomnia will find the entire report here on the ACLU site.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 4:29 PM | Permalink

October 30, 2006

Judge To Rule By End Of Year On Kinderstart Case

Reuters reports that Judge Jeremy Fogel said he will take until the end of this year to rule on the Kinderstart case. The case was about how Kinderstart's ranking and PageRank fell and Kinderstart sued Google on numerous counts for the ranking drop. The judge recently said, "Assuming Google is saying that KinderStart's Web site isn't worth seeing. Why can't they say that? That's my question." So he will consider this and other questions in his ruling.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:03 AM | Permalink

October 19, 2006

Publishers & Authors Consolidate Lawsuits Against Google

MarketWatch reports that a judge has consolidated two different cases against Google to make the process quicker and more "streamlined." Book publishers and book authors have joined together to battle Google on the legal from for copyright infringement allegations over Google's Book Search Project.

Postscript: Steve Bryant at eWeek reports that the Authors Guild v. Google case is postponed six months to January 2008. Steve said, "Doesn't that mean that Google, in the meantime, will continue to operate Google Books as normal, which is exactly what the Authors Guild wants to prevent?"

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:15 PM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Google Wins Case Against Maughan Over Search Results Snippets

Eric Goldman reports that Google has won the Maughan v. Google case where Mark Maughan filed a suit against Google for the content displayed in the snippets area under a search results listing in Google.com. A search on Mark Maughan Accountancy currently shows the number one listing from www.dca.ca.gov/cba/discipline/ma-me.htm. The snippet looks like:

The complaint was that a search like the above and other variations of it "generates a list of websites 'suggesting' he was disciplined by the California Board of Accountancy for 'gross negligence' and accepting a contingent fee for the preparation of tax returns, which he says are 'veritable scarlet letters in the accounting world'."

Google won the case, and was also rewarded $23,000 in attorneys' fees and costs.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:20 AM | Permalink

October 3, 2006

Get 20 Years For Meta Tag Abuse

Via Google Blogoscoped, Meta tag abusers face 20 years in prison from The Register covers how a new law in the US might land some people using meta tags in trouble, if they are trying to mislead children.

Specifically, the law says "whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years."

Meta tag controls were added to the Stop Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Youth (SAFETY) Act. Now we all know, meta tags have almost no impact on the rankings of a page, but anyone putting those types of keywords in their meta tags most likely are trying to do it with the intent of improving their rankings for those keywords.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:35 AM | Permalink

September 29, 2006

Yahoo China Sues Hongyi's Qihoo For Unfair Competition

Reuters reports that Yahoo China is suing Qihoo, claiming that 360safe spyware software is prompting users to uninstall the Yahoo Toolbar. The spyware software claims that Yahoo's Toolbar is "malware" and is a risk to their computers. Joseph Tsai, Alibaba's chief financial officer, said that this is unfair competition, alluding to a former Yahoo employee named Zhou Hongyi who now heads up Qihoo. It is important to note that Zhou Hongyi sued Yahoo last month for defamation.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:30 AM | Permalink

September 21, 2006

KinderStart Issues An Amended Complaint Against Google

Eric Goldman wrote that KinderStart has issued a 63 page second amended complaint against Google. KinderStart lost their first case against Google back in July of this year - that case was, in my opinion, ridiculous. This new complaint is even worse. The 43(B)log summarizes the complaints, calling many of them "incomprehensible." Eric Goldman says "I expect Google will file a motion to dismiss, which the judge will grant, at least in part (at minimum, to eliminate the Violation of Free Speech claim). I expect Google to go on the counter-offensive and renew its anti-SLAPP motions."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:51 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2006

Former Yahoo China Head Sues Yahoo For Defamation

Reuters reports that Zhou Hongyi, the former head of Yahoo China, has sued Yahoo for defamation. Yahoo said they were about to sue Zhou Hongyi for "unethical business practices." Hongyi has a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.com, which was bought by Yahoo for $1 billion last year. To me, it seems like from the article, that Yahoo finds Hongyi to be a shady character, and Hongyi doesn't like Yahoo telling the public how they feel about him.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:20 AM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

Orkut Causing Trouble In Brazil Again

Komfie Manalo reports that Brazil has threatened to bring Google to court over their social networking application, Orkut, again. Yesterday, the Federal Prosecution Service of Brazil, said Google refused "to cooperate with authorities about user information" on Orkut. Google said in the past that they would work with Brazilian officials to shut down Orkut communities that were participating and helping criminals traffic drugs and distribute pedophilia. Google says they have cooperated with Brazilian authorities, stating, they have "provided information to eight investigations, and kept secret information regarding 60 other cases since June."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:33 PM | Permalink

July 14, 2006

KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google

Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work.

Google Sued Over Site Penalty By KinderStart.com covers the case being filed back in March and provides a link to the actual suit. It was heard in court earlier this month, and you can review the transcript and analysis of that hearing.

Judge dismisses suit over Google ranking from News.com covers yesterday's ruling, where the claims against Google were dismissed. The judge gave leave for KinderStart to revise on some claims, apparently in particular on the idea that KinderStart was defamed by being dropped to a PageRank of zero as reported by the Google Toolbar.

KinderStart now apparently hopes it can enlist other PR0 sites to file a class action lawsuit against Google (info is supposed to be here, but site is currently down). The KinderStart attorney said:

"The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a whole class of Web sites sacked with a '0' PageRank," he wrote in a statement. "If plaintiffs show Google manually tampered with even a single Web site's PageRank, Google's entire claim of 'objectivity' of search results and rankings could collapse."

Sure. Fire away with that class action suit. Two class action suits over click fraud, where defendants have real monetary claims arising out of actual contacts with the major search engines, have netted around $60 million for advertisers for over four years worth of advertising activity. Assuming a somewhat nebulous defamation claim won, I can't imagine the settlement would be for much.

Keep in mind that by default, the PageRank meter is still not turned on, to my knowledge. Toolbar users have to specifically enable it. I've never seen any stats or breakdowns on who uses the PR meter, but that seems to be mainly site owners concerned about SEO, rather than typical web surfers.

Still, the case highlights a Google vulnerability. Google has argued in this case that ranking is subjective, an opinion that it offers about web sites. But go to its technology page, and you get this:

PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives. PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid placement.

So what is it, objective or subjective, or argue what's most convenient, as John Battelle raised earlier. The answer to me gets confused by Google's outdated information online plus confusion between PageRank and ranking.

Ranking, or keyword ranking, is where a site appears in response to a keyword search. It's supposed to be an objective decision made by using a computer algorithm to sort through factors, though not said is how some of those factors might have subjective decisions made over them.

PageRank is a numeric score that counts how important a page is based on analyzing the links pointing to it. It is one of many factors that Google uses to decide where a page should appear when you do a keyword search. In other words, PageRank is part of what determines keyword ranking, but it's not the only factor, nor is it the same as keyword ranking.

But doesn't Google say that pages with a higher PageRank appear at the top of the search results. Yes, and it says this incorrectly. That's right, Google's statement on this is flat out wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong. WRONG.

Am I clear enough? But how can I say Google's official information is wrong? First, I can demonstrate it, as I've done before. Try this tool. Here's a search for cars. Notice how the movie Cars is ranked second. The home page for the site listed is a PR5, putting it above several pages ranking below it with a higher PR score. Got Firefox? Try Aaron Wall's new tool that makes seeing this type of thing even easier. End Of Demonstration.

Google has tons of things they've said publicly that get outdated like this or aren't explained properly by those charged to write up copy. In particular, Google has allowed PageRank to be a synonymous term to mean how a site ranks. You can see how this makes life confusing by the first paragraph in the News.com story about the case:

KinderStart, a directory and search engine for information related to children, sued Google in March after it fell to a "zero" ranking in the Google index.

Actually, I believe that two different things happened. KinderStart:

No longer had good keyword rankings, not in the first page of results, but perhaps still buried further down unless it was banned completely. And if it was banned completely, that's not a "zero" rank but instead just called a ban.
Probably had a penalty put on it manually that produced a zero score in the PageRank meter.

The judge does not seem to be saying Google defamed the site through a lower keyword ranking. But he does seem to suggest that the PageRank score in the Google Toolbar meter might have that issue. From Eric Goldberg's nice write-up on the case (and he has a copy of the ruling there, as well):

Google?s statement as to whether a particular website is ?worth your time? necessarily reflects its subjective judgment as to what factors make a website important. Viewed in this way, a PageRank reflects Google?s opinion. However, it is possible a PageRank reasonably could be interpreted as a factual statement insofar as it purports to tell a user ?how Google?s algorithms assess the importance of the page you?re viewing.? This interpretation would be bolstered by evidence supporting Google?s alleged representations that PageRank is ?objective,? and that a reasonable person thus might understand Google?s display of a ?0? PageRank for Kinderstart.com to be a statement that ?0? is the (unmodified) output of Google?s algorithm. If it could be shown, as Kinderstart alleges, that Google is changing that output by manual intervention, then such a statement might be provably false.

I'm actually surprised the judge doesn't seem to know that Google does indeed change that output by manual intervention. That's what the entire SearchKing case was about. First some background on that:

Google Sued Over PageRank Decrease: From Feb. 2002, overview of the case that was filed against Google.
SearchKing Google Rank Restored and The SearchKing Google controversy revisited: From Nov. 2002, on SearchKing beginning to rank again for some terms but the PageRank score itself apparently not back to "normal."
Google Asks Court to Dismiss SearchKing Lawsuit and SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied: From Jan. 2003, on preliminary injunction being denied.
Court dismisses Google search-fixing case: From June 2003, on a court ruling that PageRank is Google's opinion and that what's "normal" is whatever Google wants it to be.
Four Years Later, SearchKing Regains Google PR: In April 2006, SearchKing regained PageRank.

The case involved another US District Court judge ruling that yes, Google had manipulated the PageRank score showing for SearchKing and that it had a constitutionally protected right to do so, to offer its opinion this way.

Of course, the ruling confuses PageRank and keyword ranking as I've explained above often happens:

PageRanks are opinions -- opinions of the significance of particular Web sites as they correspond to a search query.

Still, since the case was indeed focused about the PageRank meter, I suspect we're safe in knowing this was about PageRank scores getting protected status. And what the KinderStart case now tells us is that Google (and other search engines) also have the right to do keyword rankings however they like.

We'll see if the PageRank scores get challenged again. Certainly Google could short-circuit this by dropping the scores and the meter altogether (please do it). As explained, few people to my knowledge use them, and plenty of site owners are tired of newbie search marketers obsessing over them. PageRank was mainly a marketing tactic for Google that's long since been blowing up in its face.

If the meter doesn't go away, certainly Google needs to take a harder look at what it says about both the Google Toolbar and keyword rankings if it doesn't want to be vulnerable in future court cases (plus just be consistent with the public).

For example, what's a site owner told about a PR0 score:

A page may be assigned a rank of zero if Google crawls very few sites that link to it. Additionally, pages recently added to the Google index may also show a PageRank score of zero because they haven't been crawled by Googlebot yet and haven't been ranked. A page's PageRank score may increase naturally with subsequent crawls, so this shouldn't be a cause for concern. To learn more about PageRank, please see http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

There's no mention of the fact that you might have a PR0 score because Google has manually intervened to reduce it. And as for what it tells the general public:

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's PageRank? display to tell you how Google's algorithms assess the importance of the page you're viewing.

Again, it's more than just the algorithms being involved. Human are making decisions that impact that score, as well.

In short, Google is continuing to make statements that PageRank is objective to the public, but in two court cases now, it has said the scores are subjective. One case as supported its right to make subjective cases. The other has supported a defendants right to challenge if those subjective opinions are fair or defamatory. We'll see what happens next.

Finally, the entire human intervention thing with PageRank scores brings back the issue of Google long saying there's no human intervention in keyword ranking, such as they used to say about censorship:

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand.

And similar to what they still say here:

Sites' positions in our search results are determined automatically based on a number of factors, which are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/index.html. We don't manually assign keywords to sites, nor do we manipulate the ranking of any site in our search results.

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search results, we recommend reviewing our webmaster guidelines. They outline core concepts for maintaining a Google-friendly website.

As I've written before, Google does indeed hand manipulate results, but not in the sense of trying to reorder them. Instead, it manually intervenes in terms of banning some sites or putting overall ranking penalties on them. There's even been updated attempts to help site owners know when they've been banned through the Google Sitemaps program.

Overall, Google's got plenty of mixed messages out there that don't help on the PR front and potentially leave it vulnerable on the legal front, as this case has shown.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:48 AM | Permalink

July 6, 2006

Google Ombudsman? Search Ombudsman? Great Idea -- Bring Them On!

Back in 2004, Gary Stein suggested that Yahoo hire an ombudsman, a sort of impartial referee to handle disputes involving advertising programs. I thought it was a great idea. Today, Steve Bryant over at eWeek's Google Watch calls for Google to do the same thing. Again, great idea -- let's see the search engines all start hiring ombudsmen, in the way that many newspapers and others have done.

At a newspaper, the ombudsman is someone who the readers can appeal to if they feel a paper has been unfair or had a problem with coverage. The ombudsman investigates the complaint and reports back to the readers. As an insider, they have more access than an external investigator. But as the ombudsman, their responsibility is to represent the readers, not the organization.

Google's had a series of problems recently, as Bryant points out. Was Amazon accidentally knocked out on a search for its own domain name, or was it a glitch? Is Wikipedia Watch being deliberately downranked for a search on its own name, as founder Daniel Brandt feels, or is it another glitch?

An ombudsman is the sort of person who could investigate these things and report back. In fact, Google probably would need to employ a team of ombudsmen, given the many charges people point at it, often unfounded but still which need to be addressed.

Nor is Google the only one that should consider this. I don't agree with Bryant that Google is the closest thing we have to a Pope on the internet. But the idea of it being a paper of record is more true. But Google's not the only paper of record. Yahoo, MSN and Ask are all important papers, as well. I'd like to see them all establish ombudsmen.

At the very least, it will help take the pressure off the informal ombudsmen we already have -- Matt Cutts, Jeremy Zawodny and other search employees that often step up to do informal public relations and examinations of concerns. I don't want those bloggers to go away, but it would be nice to have an official person that searchers and publishers could feel are supposed to be looking into concerns.

Postscript: Google must temper its power or law makers will over at The Guardian has Jack Schofield talking about the idea of an ombudsman, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:52 AM | Permalink

July 5, 2006

Google Warns U.S. Legislators On Anti-Trust Complaints Over Net Neutrality

The Washington Post reports that Google has warned the United States, that if telecoms abuse net neutrality principles it backs, through a new law that might go through, it could consider an anti-trust action. If you want all the details, check out the Washington Post.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:46 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2006

New York State Sends Warning On Google Video Service

ResourceShelf notes a Red Herring article about the New York State Consumer Protection Board (CPB) warning parents about Google Video. The warning discussed that Google Video enables children to "easily access and view videos with sexual themes and off-color material" all for free. ResourceShelf also notes that the only video service mentioned in this warning is Google Video, not YouTube or Yahoo Video.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

Google Works With Brazil To Shut Down Orkut Communities

The Associated Press reports that Google has finally agreed to pull the plug on some communities within Orkut, Google's social networking software. Google has specifically agreed to shut down any community that violates Orkut's terms of service. This includes "any illegal or unauthorized purpose" such as;

+ Drug Pushers Using Orkut Arrested In Brazil + Brazil Asks Google To Help Orkut To Stop Organizing Organized Crime + Google & Brazil Fight Over Orkut User Data Rights + Google Faces Criminal Charges For Child Porn & Racial Material

About time I guess.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:24 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2006

Google Faces Criminal Charges For Child Porn & Racial Material

News.com reports and Bloomberg.com has more detail on Brazil's Attorney General seeking to charge Google Brazil for the distribution of "child pornography and racial materials" by Orkut users, Google's social networking software.

The Attorney General says that Google did not hand over the source of the materials posts, after being presented with a court order to do so. Google claims that the Google Brazilian unit has no responsibility for the content of Orkut, since Orkut content is hosted in the US, Google Inc. must be issued a court order. Google just does not have much luck in Brazil or with Orkut.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:47 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

Belgian Company Suing Google Over Google Suggest Suggestions

Philipp Lenssen points to a press release that shows when you begin to type your search at Google Suggest on "ServersCheck" it brings up results for "ServersCheck Crack," ServersCheck Serial," and other suggested searches of illegal versions of the ServersCheck products. Is this just a ploy for ServersCheck to get some free PR? Google Suggest is used on the Google Toolbar and was added to the Firefox toolbar.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:46 AM | Permalink

April 13, 2006

Traffic-Power Case Against SEO Book Dismissed

A bit of catch-up, Aaron Wall of SEO Book notes that the case against him filed by Traffic-Power.com was tossed out of court on jurisdiction issues. Traffic-Power has 30 days to appeal, but Aaron's hopeful this means the case is over. The case against Traffic Power Sucks has yet to be resolved, he also notes. For background on the Traffic-Power suits against both TrafficPowerSucks and SEO Book's Aaron Wall, see these past posts:

Postscript: Actually, Aaron writes to clarify the appeal time has already passed. The case was tossed out on February 13, so the 30 period for appeal has elapsed.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:44 AM | Permalink

March 10, 2006

Brazil Asks Google To Help Orkut To Stop Organizing Organized Crime

Poor old Orkut, Google's social networking service. First it's knocked for only being popular in Brazil. Then it's knocked for being a haven Al-Qaeda sympathizers. Now it's back to Brazil, where "Google Brasil summoned on chat room complaint" from Reuters covers how the Brazilian public ministry is asking Google to explain what it is doing to curb organized crime activities allegedly being committed or planned within Orkut. The story notes that 73 percent of Orkut's users are apparently Brazilian. The story makes mention of child pornography in Orkut. The service has also been dinged for drug sales, with ten arrests made in Brazil last July.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

February 13, 2006

Google Officially Confirms Traffic-Power Ban From Index

Google's Matt Cutts has provided official confirmation of a ban on the Traffic-Power domain name and some Traffic-Power client sites. Matt writes about how Google hasn't usually confirmed or denied if a company has been banned in the past, but it's a policy now changing in cases where Google finds it useful to help educate site owners and others. As for Traffic-Power, Matt wrote:

I can confirm that Google has removed traffic-power.com and domains promoted by Traffic Power from our index because of search engine optimization techniques that violated our webmaster guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html.

Matt's post -- which he notes was reviewed by Google's lawyers -- was in reaction to a recent court filing in the case of Traffic-Power versus TrafficPowerSucks. As Threadwatch notes, the filing by Traffic-Power alleges that TrafficPowerSucks has made false and defamatory claims including:

a. Claims that the search engine giant Google has banned and is banning from its search engine listings websites of Traffic-Power.com clients because of the search engine optimization strategies used by Plaintiff.

b. Claims that clients of Traffic-Power.com run the risk of being banned from Google search engine listings if they use Traffic-Power.com services

Fair to say, TrafficPowerSucks now has some pretty powerful evidence to refute the Traffic-Power allegations.

For background on the Traffic-Power suits against both TrafficPowerSucks and SEO Book's Aaron Wall, see these past posts:

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:11 AM | Permalink

November 11, 2005

Murder, Love Gone Awry, Google Searches & Bogus Clicks

Google Blogoscoped and Andy Beal both point to a story about an accused murderer searching for "neck," "snap," "break" and "hold" on Google, evidence prosecutors say that the man murdered his wife. Meanwhile, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a WebmasterWorld thread where someone reports a jaded girlfriend clicking on his AdSense links and getting his account suspended.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:44 AM | Permalink

October 5, 2005

Court Says Yahoo Speech Engineers Can Continue Working

A California judge has not issued a restraining order and 12 speech software engineers at Yahoo will be able to continue their work for the time being. The other day I blogged about Nuance, a speech tech company, filing a lawsuit against Yahoo saying that a group of engineers that moved from Nuance to Yahoo were now providing Yahoo with trade secrets. A hearing about the case is schedule on November 14th.

The order issued Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court said the court was unable to properly assess whether any wrongdoing had occurred, and therefore declined to grant Nuance's request for a temporary restraining order against Yahoo and the engineers.

"We are pleased with the result today that the court did not grant the request for a temporary restraining order," Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo said in a statement. "We continue to believe the allegations in the lawsuit are without merit, and we plan to continue a vigorous defense."

Posted by Gary Price at 1:18 PM | Permalink

October 3, 2005

Yahoo Accused of Trying to Steal Trade Secrets

It seems like everyday we have a story involving lawyers, courts, and search companies Today, is no different. News.com reports that Nuance Communications, a California speech technology company, has asked a California court to place a temporarily restraining order on about 12 speech engineers who left Nuance and are now doing interactive speech work at Yahoo. The lawsuit claims that Yahoo is trying to steal trade secrets.

In its court documents, Nuance alleges that Yahoo "gutted" its research and development unit and hired away 13 of its engineers. Nuance also alleges that its former vice president of research and development, Larry Heck, helped Yahoo hire a dozen of his engineering staff.

"We think the complaint is completely without merit and we are going to defend ourselves vigorously," said Yahoo spokeswoman Kiersten Hollars. She declined to offer further comment.

Btw, did you Yahoo offers a service called Yahoo by Phone that allows you to get sports scores, weather, contact info (from your contact folder), and even listen to your email (not just Yahoo Mail) over the telephone? It costs $4.95/month.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:25 PM | Permalink

Google Wins Age Discrimination Suit

Google Prevails in Age Discrimination Suit from the Associated Press covers Google winning in an age discrimination suit that was filed in July 2004. Brian Reid, one of AltaVista's founders who went over to Google, filed the suit when he was aged 54 and alleged that he was told by a Google exec that he didn't fit into Google's youthful atmosphere. Reid's firing from Google cost him stock options estimated to be worth $38 million. Reid's complaint against Google was also featured in John Battelle's new book The Search (page 233-234).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:47 AM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

SEO Book Files Legal Response To Traffic Power Suit

OK, one more item on the Traffic Power-SEO Book case. Sorry -- just a lot happening with it today. SEO Book's Aaron Wall's attorney has filed a formal legal response in the case, which you'll find here. From my quick skim, it denies all the allegations and the complaint asks for the case to be dismissed, with attorney fees awarded to Wall.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:17 AM | Permalink

SEMPO Says No, SMA-NA Says Yes To Fight Against Traffic Power

Further to my earlier post on the Traffic Power story, some were wondering how the two US search marketing organizations would respond to the suit alleging that SEO Book's Aaron Wall revealed Traffic Power's trade secrets. The answer is in. SEMPO is staying out of the fight, while SMA-NA is jumping in and siding with Wall.

The SEMPO statement from our forum discussion on the case:

It is the policy of SEMPO not to comment on any legal cases pending, particularly those that do not directly involve our organization. This matter in particular will be decided under existing case law relating to freedom of speech, libel/slander, and contract law. There is no compelling reason for a nonprofit group with a mission of education and market expansion to become embroiled in a legal discussion unless there is a specific reason for it such as providing expert opinion on definitions or methodologies; and if we had been solicited, then we certainly wouldn?t be able to comment.

I can understand the caution, but then again, you kind of like the chutzpah of fledgling SMA-NA deciding to take the potentially risky move and diving in. Some highlights from SMA-NA leader Ian McAnerin's blog post, Traffic Power Lawsuit, Blogging, and the SMA-NA:

I felt it was a key issue, and a serious one affecting the internet as a whole. As such, I discussed it with the other paid members of the SMA-NA at the time and decided it would be best to see what we could do about this on behalf of the SEO and Blogger industry....

I talked to Aaron and got his approval to help out on behalf of the SMA-NA. Then I went to one of the best law firms (IMO) in the state - Jones Vargas, whom I've worked with before, and contacted Ariel Stern, an all-around nice guy....

It was pretty clear that SEO's and bloggers sometimes need legal help (I get questions all the time, for example). So I talked to the fine folks at FindLaw and we are in the process of working out the details on providing methods of connecting experienced internet lawyers to SMA-NA members, in addition to providing other legal resources, advice and benefits. Once we work out the exact details, I'll use that as a template to approach lawyers in Canada and Mexico so that any SMA-NA member anywhere in North America (or any SMA member worldwide who needs legal help from within North America) will be able get it.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:09 AM | Permalink

WSJ Dissects Traffic Power Complaints & Search Engine Bans

Sites Get Dropped by Search Engines After Trying to 'Optimize' Rankings from the Wall Street Journal (paid sub. required) revisits the Traffic Power case against SEO Book's Aaron Wall -- though this time, diving into complaints about Traffic Power by customers saying they found themselves dropped after the company did SEO work for them.

These complaints all came out last year, so they aren't new. This is just a fresh retelling in light of the lawsuit. For its part, Traffic Power says ranking drops for most clients were due to search engines changing their indexing methods, not something they did.

The story further dives into Traffic Power having an "army" of cold-callers, according to former employees, and that over 100 complaints have been filed against the company with the Better Business Bureau. It also discusses how after the complaints, the company starting using other names such as 1P.com and First Place.

Overall, the article just highlights what I said earlier over the lawsuit against SEO Book. If the intent was to squash criticism, it's simply backfired into getting Traffic Power much broader and negative play that it was initially concerned about. These types of hits will continue to come as the lawsuit progresses, making me think the smart move would be to drop the suit altogether. Also, Aaron comments on his blog over here about the story.

Want to discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:53 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Against SEO Book Moves To US Federal Court

Traffic Power Lawsuit Update from Aaron Wall notes that the suit filed against him by Traffic Power over allegedly revealing trade secrets has been moved from Nevada state court to US federal state court, through his efforts. The federal case number is CV-S-05-1109-RLH-LRL. For more background on the case, see Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion and SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets".

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:50 PM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Traffic Power Suit Could Be Quashed Through Anti-Slapp Motion

Legal Showdown in Search Fracas from Adam Penenberg at Wired looks at the lawsuit by Traffic Power against SEO Book's Aaron Wall, alleging that he revealed trade secrets. Lawyers Penenberg talks with find the suit seems more about quashing negative opinions Wall had about Traffic Power than trade secrets. One from the EFF says the suit might be subject to an "anti-Slapp" motion, a statute to prevent lawsuits being brought with no merit and intended to silence critics.

The idea that trade secrets are involved gets shot down by citing my past examination of the case, as well as including observations from long-time search marketer Greg Boser, who says there are no secrets to protect because the code is published on a publicly-accessible web server. For more background, see my previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2005

Yahoo Accused Of Helping China Jail Journalist By Revealing Email Address

Rights group says Yahoo's cooperation helped China jail journalist from the Associated Press has Reporters Without Borders saying Yahoo gave the Chinese government information that helped them trace a Yahoo email address to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was jailed for in April for 10 years for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners. The Reporters Without Borders statement is here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:54 AM | Permalink

Opening Day In Microsoft-Google Fight Over Kai-Fu Fee

Courtroom showdown for Microsoft and Google from News.com covers the opening arguments in this week's court fight over whether Google China chief Kai-Fu Lee violated a non-compete clause by going over to Microsoft.

Microsoft says Lee's conduct shows he wasn't willing to live up to the restrictions, with allegations of helping Google with recruitment and advice even before departing Microsoft.

Google argues that Lee should be able to work for Google until a formal trial over the issue happens in a few months. This week's case is over lifting a temporary injunction on Lee doing work for Google. Google says Lee would do no work for Google in speech or search technology, the areas said to be the biggest concern to Microsoft.

Videotape depositions from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer were introduced. Ballmer called Lee "the godfather" of Microsoft's China strategy. More use of the f-word by Microsoft execs also comes into the case, as Lee explains Gates told him "First, we were f'ed by the Chinese people, and now the Chinese government has f'ed us." Microsoft denies Gates made such statements, as it previously denied statements by Ballmer on how he was going to "f*king kill Google."

Meanwhile, John Battelle gets more legal documents in the case, highlighting parts of Microsoft's request along with Google exec Jonathan Rosenberg calling Lee an "all star" who will contribute "substantially beyond China" and wanting Google to close around and protect him like "wolves."

He also highlights a Google rebuttal with parts saying this isn't over specific areas covered in the non-compete by Microsoft wanting to delay Google's entry into China.

Postscript from Gary: The Seattle Times provides reports on what went on in the courtroom on Monday. The article also contains the full text of an email that Kai-Fu Lee sent to Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt that began a discussion about a job at Google. Finally, the article mentions a couple of research areas that were discussed in court yesterday. A Microsoft attorney talked about voice-activated search research (speak your search) going on at MS. This type of work is also going on at Google, In fact, Google Labs once offered this type of thing with Google Voice. The demo is no longer available but you can read about it here. Also mentioned by the MS attorney was "Geegle," research going on at Google that uses, "natural-language processing to extract information from the Internet."

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:47 AM | Permalink

September 1, 2005

Aaron Wall To Fight Traffic Power Suit; Calls For Donations

Aaron Wall of SEO Book, who is being sued by Traffic Power over allegedly helping reveal "trade secrets" has decided to fight the lawsuit. In Legal Donations Accepted, he explains that despite getting settlement agreement papers, he's decided the issue goes beyond his blog and needs to be fought:

This suit is not about Traffic Power. This suit is not about this blog. This suit is more about free speech, which is the very fabric that holds the web and democracy together. An issue far more important than I could ever pretend to be.

If I do not face this suit, then it is easier for the next person to get trampled. After all the support people have offered I do not think it is the right decision to tuck tail and run, especially since I am still unaware of what specifically is wrong - and never once has there been an attempt to tell me.

Further in his post, he calls for donations and pledges that if donations exceed legal costs, any excess will go to groups such as the EFF.

For more background on the case, see our previous SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets" article. Wall's fight was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal in its Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers article and also at Slashdot.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:14 AM | Permalink

August 30, 2005

SEO Book's Aaron Wall Sued By Traffic-Power Over Revealing "Trade Secrets"

Back in June, I heard from Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog. He'd been served with a cease-and-desist letter from SEO company Traffic-Power.com that seemed impossible to comply with. At issue was a claim that Wall had published "proprietary and confidential information." However, the claim didn't list any specific infringing material that Wall was supposed to remove. Now things have progressed to an actual lawsuit over the matter, one that I can't help thinking will get dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

The Cease-And-Desist Letter

Let's start with the actual letter. The Max D Spilka & Traffic Power Cease and Desist Letter post at Wall's blog at the end of July reprints the letter he was sent. It's not long, but I'll highlight the key parts in bullet point format:

It has come to our attention that on a website you control, namely www.SEO Book..com, proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business has been published.
The published information violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521, and is subject to certain contracts between Traffic-Power and its former and/or current employees.
The published information has been pirated from Traffic Power and you have obtained the information illegally, all of which you knew or should have known.
You are to cease and desist immediately from the same or any similar activity. In the event you fail to do so, Traffic Power is prepared to initiate litigation to obtain an injunction to enforce its rights.
Finally, consistant with recent court rulings you may now be obligated to disclose the source(s) of your information. Accordingly, within ten (10) days of this letter, you are to do the following:
- 1. Provide a list of the sources of your information complete with name, address, and telephone number; and,
- 2. Remove from www.SEO Book.com website all information relating to Traffic-Power.

Lack Of Specifics

As said, I found this letter almost impossible to comply with. What's the confidential information? Where was it published? Which sources are alleged to be involved?

I contacted Traffic Power to learn more about what Wall was supposed to do in response to the letter. Below are questions I sent, along with the emailed responses from Traffic Power's public relations firm AMR Partners that I received at the end of June. I've made light edits to clean up some spellings and grammatical errors in both the questions sent and answers received, produced by the informal nature of email:

Question: The letter never actually says what it is he supposedly pirated or published. What exactly is it that's in contention here?

Traffic Power tells me that in threads regarding Traffic-Power portions of private and confidential emails have been presented as well as links to proprietary company information as well as false claims against the company regard non-existing lawsuits and other potentially libelous claims.

"I just thought anyone should know, This is an interesting link to a law firm that is getting ready to file a class action against Traffic-Power.com http://www.girardgibbs.com/traffic-power.html"

Many of these links are no longer available and Mr. Wall's site - Blocked Wayback Machine with "Robots.txt Query Exclusion" (See robots.txt file at http://www.seobook.com/robots.txt) http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml

Question: Isn't a violation of the act [cited in the cease and desist] a criminal violation?

That would be a better question for Traffic Power's attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: The letter suggests Traffic-Power might be entitled to damages under the act. Isn't it really that he'd be fined by the federal government?

I believe the letter is suggesting that Traffic Power will pursue all legal remedies both criminal and civil to resolve this matter.

Question: Can you be more specific of what exactly he's done to violate the act, which seems to be mostly related to federal wiretapping provisions?

Again I feel that would be a better question for Traffic Powers Attorney, Mr. Spilka.

Question: How is he supposed to comply with a demand for source disclosure when you haven't cited what was allegedly published or pirated? Are you expecting a list of every person he's ever talked with?

I have no idea what the legal team might expect in terms of disclosure of sources, but I have been told that any evidence will not be presented until it has been decided whether or not they need to file a lawsuit.

Question: Are you suggesting everything on the SEO Book web site that might mention Traffic-Power is somehow pirated material? Doing a quick search, I see http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml, where he talks about being called by Traffic-Power. Is this the pirated communication? And if so, was he informed of this before the phone call began?

I do not think the intent of the letter is to imply that everything on the site is pirated or in response to the two links you've posted, but rather to suggest that pirated material as well as material that could be considered libelous are present and that there are several issues on Mr. Wall's sites that are potentially actionable.

In conclusion, Traffic Power has assured me that they would much prefer a civil dialog with their critics instead of any legal action and that they at least, would be open to discussion.

I'm afraid the responses left me not much clearer about the situation. The cease-and-desist letter talked about Wall allegedly publishing confidential information, yet the follow-up answers went broader to suggest there was potentially libelous information at issue, as well.

Certainly Wall didn't know what he should do. As he wrote on his blog:

The only way I could have complied with it is if I shut my site down and gave them contact information of everyone I have ever contacted. Since it was impossible to comply without destroying my business model and potentially getting my friends and customers spammed or cold called I asked a friend about the situation.

The Cold Call Post

It seems the key trigger in all of this was Wall's Traffic Power & Cold Call SEO post of May 6, 2004. That's the http://www.seobook.com/archives/000314.shtml URL mentioned in the follow-up response I received (though not in the actual letter sent to Wall). That's Wall's best guess as well, as he's emailed me and as he speculates in a timeline-of-sorts in this post on August 26 about being sued.

In the post, he talks about being cold called by someone from Traffic-Power and coming away unimpressed. I didn't see anything proprietary when I looked at the post. Libelous? That wasn't an issue in the letter he was sent. Trade secrets? Again, nothing I see any the post anything remotely approaching what I'd view as trade secrets.

There's more than the post, of course. There are comments below it. Some in our forum thread on the lawsuit wonder if perhaps some of the things people have posted might have been deemed trade secrets, such as:

Alleged use of doorway pages
Apparently hosting keyword-targeted pages on other web sites, maintaining ultimate control of the traffic
Alleged use of JavaScript cloaking

If these are trade secrets, none of them would be considered proprietary or unique to Traffic-Power, to my knowledge. Moreover, if these are things that have been discussed with clients and potential clients -- without requiring the use of non-disclosure statements -- then they hardly seem secrets worthy of legal protection.

By the way, how about that law mentioned as part of the letter? The EFF gives a layman's view here and FindLaw has info on various sections here. I came away thinking it was made certain wiretapping like activities a criminal action that the US government could pursue, not something to be tried in civil court.

The Lawsuit Against SEO Book

As said, I started looking into this back in June. My understanding was that the issue had gone away. Wall posted the letter he received on his blog, and that seemed to be the end of it.

Obviously, it is not. Notice! You Have Been Sued is a follow-up post on Wall's blog that contains the lawsuit. You can read through it there. It reasserts that Wall has somehow helped reveal trade secrets while not explaining where, when or how. It further alleges that Wall's published "false and defamatory" information about Traffic-Power, though again not naming or explaining what this is. Perhaps there were exhibits as part of the filing, but if so, these aren't referenced as is typical in a complaint.

Wall says that he's been told verbally that if he drops all content about Traffic Power on his web site -- regardless of whether it is legitimate -- the suit would be dropped. He's now seeking a written confirmation of this, while weighing up the pros of fighting the case versus the cons, all of which are itemized on the site. Ultimately, he says he's leaning toward pulling the material.

A Chilling Effect -- But Not For Everyone

If so, I find it unfortunate. In fact, I find the entire lawsuit unfortunate. Whatever reputation improvement Traffic-Power thought it might be gaining through such an action has just gotten worse. Small sites may react to the chilling effect of being sued. Larger publishers won't -- and many more of them just learned about Traffic-Power and the many allegations levied against them over the past year, as a result of the action.

One big publisher, by the way, is Google. As Marcia over in our forum thread on the lawsuit pointed out, there's a Google Answers question that talks about Traffic-Power "doorway pages," describes hidden links as "cloaking" and has a conclusion that "questionable SEO tactics are being employed on your website." If anything, that response on a web site hosted by Google, from a freelance question answerer paid through Google, is far more damaging than what I've seen referenced on the SEO Book blog.

In fact, maybe even other smaller sites will stick with it. Wall points over to the Traffic Power Sucks site, a protest site against the firm that talks about how to gain refunds, a possible class action lawsuit and advice from the site's perspective of things to watch out for. It sounds like the site received a letter similar to what Wall got:

I received a little letter from the same lawyer threatening me with a lawsuit if I didn't take "proprietary and confidential information related to Traffic Power's business" off of my website. I called the lawyer and asked him exactly what information he was referring to. He had no idea what I was talking about. This was the guy who signed the letter, and he was clueless. If anyone can find anything at all on this website that could possibly be considered Traffic Power's "proprietary and confidential information", drop me an email at webmaster@trafficpowersucks.com.

I take it Traffic Power Sucks has no plans to remove material and if ultimately sued, I suspect it will press onward since it seems to be organizing its own lawsuit against the firm.

Want to discuss? Visit the Traffic Power Files Suit Against SEO Book thread in our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Postscript from Gary: I did a bit of searching and on August 11th, the same day a lawsuit was filed against Aaron Wall/SEO Book, another suit was filed in a Neveda District Court listing TrafficPowerSucks.com (and those who run the site) as defendents.

Postscript 2: The Wall Street Journal now has a story with some legal comments: Blogger Faces Lawsuit Over Comments Posted by Readers.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:22 PM | Permalink

July 28, 2005

Google Ads, a Feud, and a Barren Rock

Stories from the Canadian Press and Reuters report about how ads on Google are coming into play in a an argument betweeen Canada and Denmark over Hans Island, a barren rock near the North Pole.

"A quick Google search of "hans island" Wednesday revealed a paid advertisement with the banner headline: "Hans Island is Greenland. Greenland natives have used the island for centuries." The ad was linked to a Danish government letter condemning a recent unannounced visit to the island by Defence Minister Bill Graham. However, the paid advertisement was not a Danish government initiative and whoever placed it was acting alone, said Poul Erik Dam Kristensen, Denmark's ambassador to Ottawa. That didn't stop one Internet expert - and patriotic Canuck - from striking back. Toronto resident Rick Broadhead placed a Google ad and said the Canadian government needs to get with the times.

Postscript From Danny: I thought a picture was in order. When Gary and I looked yesterday, we didn't see any ads. Now they are back. Left side shows ads on Google Canada. Right side shows ads on Google Denmark. No ads are appear on Google Denmark when I searched for hans ø, which I'm pretty sure is "hans island' in Danish. I couldn't seem to trigger any Danish-language ads in any way. Here are the ads as of 12:30pm GMT:

Posted by Gary Price at 4:32 PM | Permalink

July 19, 2005

Microsoft Sues Google Over China Hire

It's time to take the Google vs. Microsoft rivalry to court.

In my post earlier today about Google expanding their presence in China by opening a research lab, I noted that Google had hired Dr. Kai-Fu Lee away from Microsoft where he was serving as a corporate vice president.

Well, it didn't take long for the folks in Redmond to sue Dr. Lee claiming he's breaching the Microsoft employee confidentiality and non-compete agreements by joining Google.

From a ZDNet article:

Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said in an e-mail. "We are asking the court to require Dr. Lee and Google to honor the confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when he began working for Microsoft."

In an email to SEW, Google's David Krane tells us: "We have reviewed Microsoft's claims and they are completely without merit. Google is focused on building the best place in the world for great innovators to work. We're thrilled to have Dr. Lee on board at Google. We will defend vigorously against these meritless claims and will fully support Dr. Lee."

Postscript: Dirson points to comments about the lawsuit from an ex-Microsoftie now working at Google.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:13 PM | Permalink

May 13, 2005

Yahoo Sued Over Child Porn On Yahoo Groups

Yahoo Groups is a great way to create mailing lists and interest groups on any topic. Heck, even Google jumped into this portal feature last year with its revamped Google Groups. But a child porn group could end up costing Yahoo. The parents of a child whose image was shared through the Candyman child porn list on Yahoo Groups are now suing the company for $10 million. More details in Yahoo sued over Candyman child porn site from Reuters.

Postscript: A copy of the complaint in PDF format is here .

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:13 PM | Permalink

May 12, 2005

Class Action Lawsuit Against FindWhat Over Alleged Securities Fraud

A class action lawsuit against FindWhat over alleged securities fraud has been filed. Or maybe that's lawsuits. Here's the law firm of Schiffrin & Barroway providing the news. Firm Paskowitz & Associates says the same, as does Schatz & Nobel. At the moment, I don't know who originated the actual complaint and whether these are various law firms trying to jump in on the action. As we learn more, we'll post.

Postscript: Gary's dug up more information on the action here, which has Zucco Partners named as the first identified complaint. It also shows all firms currently involved in the case.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:07 PM | Permalink

May 11, 2005

MSN Employee Who Hacked AltaVista Pleads Guilty

A few eyebrows were raised last year when an MSN employee was accused of hacking into AltaVista. The actions happened before Laurent Chavet began working for MSN, so ideas of corporate espionage don't really apply. He's now plead guilty to charges. Alta Vista hacker pleads guilty from the San Jose Business Journal has a few details. A US Attorney's Office press release has more, with the charge being one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer and another count related to reckless damage. Chavet faces up to 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing will happen on Aug. 19. In a plea bargain, Chavet has apparently agreed to pay AltaVista's owner Yahoo $62,104 in restitution. For more background, see our forum thread: MSN Search Employee Arrested for Allegedly Hacking AltaVista.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:32 PM | Permalink

April 12, 2005

Mamma.com Gets Formally Probed By SEC

Several sources, including this Dow Jones story, are reporting that the SEC's (Security and Exchange) Montreal-based search engine, Mamma.com, has been "converted" into a formal investigation.

The metasearch and online direct marketing service company said the SEC may consider matters related to trading in the company's securities.The SEC is also investigating whether an individual and persons acting jointly or with him may have had a significant influence on the company in the past as a result of undisclosed shareholdings.

The SEC began an informal investigation of Mamma.com about a year ago when the the government agency requested documents from the company.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:02 PM | Permalink

January 6, 2005

Web Search Into Consumer Search & Other Reflections

In today's SearchDay article Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search, I review some major developments I saw in search during 2004 and try some looking forward into 2005.

In particular, I think this year will be one of web search morphing into consumer search, where major search companies offer a robust range of ways to search for information in specialized areas.

In the article, I also reflect on:

How legal issues will continue to impact the maturing search industry.
How personal search has erupted as a significant new force for change.
How vertical search features will continue to usurp general web searching.
Why search marketers need more support from search engines.
Why everyone should understand search doesn't mean just paid search and that contextual isn't search at all.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:38 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2004

Google Goes After Parody Sites

Google has sent a cease and desist letter to at least one parody site. Details from Ars Technica: Google: Take Down This Parody Site.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month

Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints & Permissions

Privacy Policy
Affiliates

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-564586-7"); pageTracker._setDomainName(".searchenginewatch.com"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); window.collarity_appid = "incmedia"; //> //>

Top Jobs

more Jobs

Account Director
InkHouse Media + Marketing Waltham, United States

Online Marketing Strategist
M&T Bank Buffalo, United States

Director, Ecommerce
Tekessence Inc. , United States , United States

Digital Marketing Manager
Tibco Software Palo Alto, United States

White Papers

more Research