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I just noticed, that Searcjking has received an answer from Google and now there are selling password to see the documents for $20 each. Are they crazy?
What do you think about that?
I guess in a country where money is considered political speech, anything is possible!
Hope this helps,
GoogleGuy
This has to be one of the most ridiculous lawsuits of ALL TIME!
The whole point of pagerank is to determine the relevence of a site by allowing voting in the form of links. If a company can increase their PR simply by paying $200/month it completely defeats the object!
Why on earth should google be bound by law to even list the company. Personally, if I were in google's position I would remove SK and all related sites!
Just my opinion, of course!
Found this topic on slashdot. I certainly need to continue reading to know the merits of the arguments, but this is interesting reading none the less. it goes into detail about what Google feels the role of pagerank is, which is very cool by itself.
[research.yale.edu...]
If this in innapropriate for the forum, please feel free to smack me down with a stick.
(for the record, i like google :) )
[research.yale.edu...]
In non-legal terms it explains what Google has said and not said.
I almost crashed my comp.
it could just have a .exe or .vbs extension as well.
would you like to install gators 'cursor magic' file now?" :)
Before I provide any of my comments, which I've been biting my tongue on ever since this all started, I'll let others chime in...
theres a link (to a htm style page) on slashdot. as people weigh in, some gems might arise (and some idiots have risen already too!).
one funny comment was "Who goes to a search engine to search for other search engines anyway? That's like me training a dog to find other dogs that are trained to find dogs. I don't see how search king could possibly even claim to have a case here."
hehe.
Thanks to the pointer to the much more readable (and non-PDF!) file.
And people have been paying $20.00 to view a copy of that!
yup and they are probably still paying if they haven't seen it posted here.
I bet his lawyers are sorry they have such a pain in the you know what for a client.
Maybe he does know.... ;)
Thing that I still don't understand is why he published his promotional methods on his web site? There are thousand (may tens of thousands) of sites effectively selling their PR via advertising links. They just don't run their mouths off about it.
I also don't understand why he didn't include that fact in his suit and throw out half the other stuff. I would have thought tort should have been the main play. If they didn't penalize all others selling PR (just because they didn't openly state it) but penalized his site because he did, then Tort backed up with the 1st amendment surely would have made a much better impression.
I still don't see how he could ever win, even if he had a good legal team, but at least making a better effort would have been more fun :)
This is no joke, before the last update the site had a PR0 penalty since about 14 months, and now it has PR4 - djgreg
That is a funny note in your profile. Either Googlebot took special mercy on you because of your note or they changed their policy on guesbook entries. I couldn't help but check out your backlinks:)
Do you play chess GoogleGuy? I'd love to play you one day! ;)
This SK guy should be punished for mis-representation, b'cos the $20 which he is charging to access the docs...he says will go towards the "Legal Defense Fund" ...
Buy in reality it should have been "Legal Attack Fund" .. since he is the one suing Google and not the other way round!
hehe
The interesting parts: Google does not deny, hand adjusting the PR. There used to be a lot of debate about that.
The interesting opinion: even the obviously anti-SK, Yale law reporter, is questioning how Google uses it's power! :) Even he is asking about regulating Google.
Other than that - the document is standard legal talk - and poorly written in that respect.
They could have said what they wanted to say in much less space.
While I understand what they are saying about opinion, google has tried to impart a feeling of non human intervention to PR.
"Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult."
This isn't automated if someone from google says "Oh - here is a spammer - lets change him from 8 to 2 or 4 or whatever....
I still don't get what someone else said - why leave him in at all. I will bow to google's better judgement on this matter. It just seems suprising to me that they would allow him in at all.
While google penalties have been known for some time - and many have suspected a PR penalty - this is the first time they have admitted to it as far as I know.
I don't see anything wrong with this - as long as they are up front with it. This makes it an easier way for google to penalize some pages that their algo THINKS might be "cheating", but why use it when a HUMAN decides there is cheating?
You should see the fees westlaw and others charge for PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.
$20 is a bargin compared to them.
Free is better....
Nevertheless, I did after some research on the subject and decided against it.
told me he couldnt disclose the site
So, he's scared of google finding out what sites he is selling links on?
It's a good thing Googleplex is full of stupid people that would never be able to figure out a way to start picking off those sites one at a time for only $299 each.
Then what would happen to the rest of those high PR pages that have agreed to play his little game?
Give just about anyone a PR9 page, and they should be able to figure out a way to make money off it, without pissing off Google. Why risk a page that is that valuable.
