JimOdom.com

Posted by Jim on January 6th, 2008 in Uncategorized

Dan Perry points out a new “feature” from Google in the SERPs. Evidently, Google is trying to protect us from ourselves.

http://danperry.com/wordpress/ouch/

I don’t know, this company may have done something really hideous in the past. Or they could have just been “had” by an unethical web developer (though the developer of the current site seems to be a Microsoft Certified Partner). Or maybe…Google made a mistake?

I took a very quick look at the code on the home page and found nothing that looked troubling. There’s one javascript for analytics, but nothing strange that I noticed.

I am not in any way saying this site is safe or ethical. I don’t know. But I don’t see any golf vacations to Wisconsin in my near future so I’m not going to worry about it too much.

My point is, if Google is so “concerned” with our computer’s well-being then why not just remove the listing and contact the site owner to give them a chance to resolve the problem, instead of making them march around the town square with a big red “B” (for Badware) on their chest. I would guess that there has never been any type of communication from Google to this site owner about this label.

And what is more frustrating is that if this site is crooked, then why let it continue to take up a place in the top-20 where some well-meaning, non-badware site could be listed instead.

But for a minute let’s assume that the “This site may harm your computer” message is legit. And Google is granting some leeway to this site by continuing to display the listing (even though there is a big red WARNING sign). What about the other “shady” business practices Google has instituted.

Google consistently oversteps its boundaries of being a roadmap to information. Somewhere along the way someone at Google decided they would be the Traffic Cop. It seems to me they’ve set up one big-ass speed trap!

For companies who rely on their websites to provide an income for the people (with families) who are employed by those companies Google can, without provocation, notice, or response, put them out of business.

Google has created a business model where every business has a dependency on being ranked highly. And when a site is not ranked highly the only course of action is to pay for ads.
I don’t fault Google for being so successful. Or even for becoming everything that they claim they hate about Microsoft. But I do fault them for hiding behind the curtain. Even the Police have to tell people what the laws are before they start arresting people. Google does not tell us what the laws are. And when you ask them they tell you it’s a trade secret.

And I thought only my wife could change the rules in the middle of the game and get away with it.

Thanks to Dan for pointing this out.  If you want to see more of Dan’s writing visit him at 19thHole.com (http://www.19thhole.com/user/danperry/blogs) or at his blog (http://danperry.com)