tedster - 8:25 pm on Apr 20, 2010 (gmt 0)

In other words, some customers are clearly unhappy with the product/service and wonder if they have been scammed.

Maybe in some cases. It also has become common, BEFORE doing business with a company, for people to do such searches as part of their research, their due diligence. I have seen negative search suggestions where the result contained just one page - and that page had content something like "we have no reports of any scam associated with this business".

Unfortunately, reputation damage is done by the mere appearance of the negative phrase in the Google Suggestions. No actual search results about true scams or rip-offs needs ever to be seen. And as more people learn about Rip-off Report, for example, the search on "business-name rip-off" seems to be getting more and more common.