homegirl - 8:54 pm on Feb 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

I am surprised by the level of criticism voiced here. The Times article actually referenced Google Sponsored Listings (NOT AdWords). Further, while it may not be the role of any search engine to check or penalize any particular company's practices, there is such a thing as "good name" and "credibility" that the search engines trade on. Also, while it may have gotten some of its facts wrong, it still brought up the issue that in theory, the shopping comparison sites have greater incentive to push sleazy retailers (more so than the search engines).

If Google users complained to Google about misleading ads or really bad experiences, shouldn't there be some fallout?

As for the conflict of interest question, I still consider the NYTimes primarily a physical-copy paper (out there in the world beyond the internet) unless anyone has proof that this article only appeared in the online version (which I doubt). For a large majority of the world that's not connected (and considerably less savvy than this bunch), it's actually news that 1) some of those top listings for search terms are paid and 2) the companies that pay for these listings aren't always the best ones to do business with. No kidding. Perhaps the conflict of interest should have been spelled out more (like CNN's constant reminder that it's owned by AOL-TimeWarner when dealing with reviews, etc. of certain properties).

And while I think it's great that other people here have had positive experiences with Broadway Photo, the following article would make me pause in dealing with them:

[pcworld.com...]

I see the NYTimes piece- primarily aimed at educating a non-savvy-internet public. They outnumber the group here by far. So it's of interest to me in terms of challenging us to stay in tune with that potential consumer.