Rollo - 7:34 pm on Mar 9, 2005 (gmt 0)

If yall are serious about making this a newsworthy issue, the place to go would be the news desks at WSJ or NY Times, and if they don't bite some smaller papers like St. Petersburg Times with a history of good investigative journalism.

What would be required to get a story in the news is a credible source or two. Some webmaster pissed because their gambling or booty site just got hijacked won't do it. A couple of folks with creditability and standing (like Brett) would be needed to provide quotes. This will be hard because they won't want to come forward.

Furthermore, the story would have to be explained in simple terms so that someone with ZERO knowledge of webmastering could understand the who, what, when, where, why and how of the problem and its consequences. I agree that sufficient resources would be diverted to the issue only under the pressure of public scrutiny (take a look a the security bugs in XP that Gates was forced address rather than advancing Longhorn, though that was a much more widespread concern than this).

A few tips:

Don't deal with techy rags because they'd be a dead end. Be prepared to have yourself quoted in superficial, sensationalist and distortion filled accounts with titles like "The End of Google?" particularly in the conservative media because Google employees are major Dem donors.

You could generate a story if you can explain it so that a five year old can understand it, but whoever is brave enough to be quoted, they should be prepared to be loathed by Google which despite its problems, increasing greed, recent incompetence and unfair sandbox/filtering is still the best (not to mention the biggest) engine around.

I'm not really sure it would be worth it, better to circulate a petition with the signatures of credible folks with an ultimatum that you'll be dedicated to advancing the story if Google doesn't make a statement here about fixing the problem with a clear, transparent, and verifiable roadmap.