French Court Frowns On Autocomplete, Tells Google To Remove Searches 343
New submitter Lexx Greatrex writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Google had been sued by insurance company Lyonnaise de Garantie, which was offended by search results including the word 'escroc,' meaning crook, according to a story posted Tuesday by the Courthouse News Service. 'Google had argued that it was not liable since the word, added under Google Suggest, was the result of an automatic algorithm and did not come from human thought,' the article states. 'A Paris court ruled against Google, however, pointing out that the search engine ignored requests to remove the offending word... In addition to the fine, Google must also remove the term from searches associated with Lyonnaise de Garantie.'"
What if... (Score:5, Funny)
Can it be added back in later if we find out that they really are crooks?
Re:What if... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
For profit insurance companies always lose in comparison to mutual companies.That profit margin has got to come from somewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
It was called communism, and it failed miserably. That expectation of receiving money for your work was changed for, go work or else.
Re:Wrong conclusion. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's getting pretty tenuous to dismiss communism as "failed", based on the relative "success" of capitalism at this point. But I don't think ShieldW0lf was talking about communism at all. Collective ownership and organization does not require centralized control. Capitalism is a form of distributed ownership and organization with efficient distribution of resources provided by a bit of Game Theory. Or that is the idea anyway.
The whole point of Game Theory is to structure the rules of the game to encourage the behavior your want and discourage the behavior you don't. We do this at a economy-level game with regulation. The current rules encourage exploitation - "You get used and cheated and swindled because it's the only way to get you off your fucking asses." - but this can be fixed without resorting to communism.
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism didn't fail. Democracy did. And a particular implementation of it, it is probably not an inherent failure.
If the US and EU are experiencing that depression it is because of government fraud. And that isn't a feature of Capitalism.
Worldwide people should start rethinking their government.
Re: (Score:3)
One thing to be said about communism is that they built to last, and not to throw away. Once we start drowning in our own waste, the "success" of capitalism and rapant consumerism will be reassessed.
Re:Wrong conclusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was called communism, and it failed miserably. That expectation of receiving money for your work was changed for, go work or else.
"There is talk about the failure of socialism, yet where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America? Where is the success of capitalism in places where thousands of millions of people live? I believe that the failure of capitalism should be discussed as much as the failure of socialism in a small number of countries. Capitalism failed in more than 100 countries, which now face a truly desperate situation." - Fidel Castro, 1991.
And communism was never tried, not in a large scale. Try to read about its ideas before you make a fool of yourself again, or at least refrain from talking about what you don't understand. And that goes for other topics too, if you have no idea what it is about your uneducated opinion is irrelevant.
Re:Wrong conclusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
"There is talk about the failure of socialism, yet where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America?"
He was correct, if you didn't count Japan, Singapore, Mexico, Argentina, Hong Kong or South Korea, which is a round-about way of saying that he was wrong. True, Africa south of Sahara isn't doing great, but that doesn't seem to correlate with economic model, and has more to do with the lack of infrastructure and protection of property rights. But then, quoting a communist despot on the success of capitalism is like quoting a catholic priest on the succes of the gay right movement: Unless you are doing it to ridicule the quotee, you are not doing your argument or your credibilty any favors.
Re:Wrong conclusion. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because real communism fails long before a situation can ever get to a "large scale". Communism does appear to work with small to modestly sized communities, but once the number of people grows beyond a certain size, communism starts to break down because of unavoidable human condition factors such as greed and laziness. Communism only works as long as there are enough people in it that are willing, for whatever reason, to work for each other and give to each other. As the number of people who may not share this ideal reaches a critical mass in any community, it quickly outweighs the rest of that community's ability to support itself, and the system falls apart. The general breaking point for communism appears to be when the group becomes large enough for people to not feel any personal obligation to the society as a whole, which, owing to size limits on the number of people that any one person can directly socialize with on any level, coupled with the fact that subgroups inevitably form where everybody knows everybody in the subgroup, and they mostly socialize only with eachother, in practice seems to be no more than several hundred people. Larger groups can have limited apparent success at implementing communism, but in practice, it is always shown that they cannot sustain themselves indefinitely, and the system invariably falls apart.
Re: (Score:3)
Communism *can't* be tried on a large scale, because it doesn 't scale. It is arguably the best form of government for a group of fewer than 50 people...provided that the group is allowed to kick out members for willful sponging. And the groups can be quite democratic, though they often aren't. (Communism and democratic are not antithetical. They speak to different aspects of life.)
OTOH, no successful group remains communist. (Please note the lower case c. It was there in the prior paragraph too, but t
Re:Wrong conclusion. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not opposed to insurance as a concept - but it will only work with strong state regulation to contain its excesses.
Obviously I do not live in America, where exploiting the weak is considered a virtuous act and to be applauded, especially if it makes you rich. Most bizarely, this belief seems to be as strong in the exploited as in everyone else..
Here in Europe, most people know (often from the experience of close family) that, while they, personally, may be strong now, they could easily be weak tomorrow. Those that don't believe this were given too free a rein lately - and now we are in a mess.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Search engines henceforth will now be obliged to associate Lyonnaise de Garantie and crooks, for if they don't they wouldn't be very good search engines. Even if it isn't true that Lyonnaise de Garantie are crooks, they're definitely idiots.
I refuse to take part in any such gaming, clearly.
Re:What if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Naw... Google will do what they always do... any searches for Lyonnaise de Grantie will prominently dispaly a notice about how many search results are ommitted and link to the court order that explains why. Why would google remove the company from search results and give up a golden opportunity to dish out another lesson on Streisand Effect?
Because to a company it could be more harmful (Score:5, Insightful)
If I ran Google I'd blacklist said company. No results for them period, on any search. I'd say "To make sure we comply with the order that no offensive terms ever lead to you, we have removed you from our indexing entirely. This is the only way we can ensure that there is never an offensive term that might result in your company being linked."
They'd quickly find out it is not good for business when you can't be located by the most popular search engine. If they wanted back on I'd demand they sign an indemnity/permission document saying that they agree never to sue us no matter what search terms may end up linking to them.
Re: (Score:3)
they do link to Chilling Effects notices when results got DMCA'ed, not sure if that kind of thing would carry over to results removed due to other types of laws in other countries.
Judging by my ... buddy's ... porn searches here in Switzerland, yes they do.
Censorship. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Demanding that a service provider not automatically slander you is not censorship. Google's white-washing of their control over the algorithms is bullshit. I seriously doubt it's hard for them to flag a word that should NEVER come up during a search; they certainly can ensure through AdWords that a word ALWAYS flags a particular result.
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then the solution is to remove "Lyonnaise de Garantie" from the search engine all together. Wipe them off any search result what-so-ever. Nothing in French law requires Google to index any site...
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Informative)
Google does issue punitive downgrades when they want to... they did it themselves to Chrome [slashdot.org] a few days ago for dealing with a link spam vendor.
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Interesting)
Corporate origin. Government sponsorship. Plain and simple.
So? All that matters is if Google broke French law.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around how something like this is a matter of law. I'm reminded of the South Park "Nigger Guy" episode. Is it, in France, unlawful to say "Lyonnaise de Garantie" within three words of "escroc"? Are there other variations which are also unlawful? Can they throw one in prison before telling them they broke the law? How far will this go?
Re: (Score:3)
Straight up, it's defamation. If you searched for "thedonger" on google and the results were always "thedonger is a liar, thedonger is a murder etc." you'd have a potential problem.
The trick here is that this is an autosuggest. Google is suggesting, now what that means can vary. I take that to mean google is suggesting that these are things commonly searched together. If you take it to mean 'google is suggesting you should search for' or 'google is suggesting that' then the situation is a bit different
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Interesting)
No Google is pretty clearing suggesting these are the search terms you might want based on the fact others used these search terms. You'd have to be pretty F'ing brain dead not understand that. Its a factual statement, Google isn't saying the company has committed fraud or anything of the sort, just that you might be looking for these search terms.
I actually do exactly that often. I Google companies (especially local service providers) and combine their names with words like: fraud, theft, poor, dirty, etc/. Most of the time nothing comes up and that's good.
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Insightful)
The trick here is that this is an autosuggest. Google is suggesting, now what that means can vary. I take that to mean google is suggesting that these are things commonly searched together. If you take it to mean 'google is suggesting you should search for' or 'google is suggesting that' then the situation is a bit different.
Google is suggesting a query string, not a matter of truth. In fact, there is no truth value associated with the query; the truth lies within the results of the search.
My interpretation: This is another example of people with limited understanding of the internet attempting to regulate it. We will all suffer as a result. OTOH, as long as they are not filtering results we can still search for "french government has their head up their own ass." They are really lucky I like Bordeaux wines and French cheese and pate de campagne.
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Informative)
They are really lucky I like Bordeaux wines and French cheese and pate de campagne.
May I suggest Australian Hunter Valley red wines [wikipedia.org], New Zealand Marlborough white wines [wikipedia.org], Dutch cheese [wikipedia.org], and German (spreadable) Leberwurst [wikipedia.org] as alternatives?
As a New Zealander, I grew up with news reports of what should be considered an act of war [wikipedia.org] against New Zealand by France, and consequently find it somewhat difficult to support France's economy by buying their stuff (especially when the alternatives are often significantly better).
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Interesting)
The story is about how a judge interprets french law in favor of a governmentally sponsored company.
I'm quite certain there is nothing in French law that states search engines must make sure the pages they index do not contain a name and an insult on the same page.
So quick to believe anything bad about Google.
Re: (Score:3)
If it's true, it's not libel. Even in France.
What's the odds that Sarkozy has some stake in the company?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless you are a French citizen or live in France you have no right to complain.
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly enough, you have made the single most insightful comment in this entire discussion - Albeit unintentionally.
Many people (mostly Americans, I expect) in this conversation have the mistaken impression that France has a legal system more-or-less the same as most of the rest of the civilized world.
That does not describe the reality of the situation.
France has a "legal system" in the same sense that ancient Rome did - Between two citizens of roughly equal stature, it does/did a pretty good job of doling out justice. Throw a foreigner into the mix, though, and he might as well just jump into the lion's mouth and save everyone the trouble.
I honestly don't understand why any modern (non-French) company bothers setting up shop there. In Google's shoes, I'd pull out of the whole damned country and change www.google.fr to one of their cute logo variants consisting entirely of obscene hand gestures.
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Interesting)
Monopolies are held to different standards of the law by governments, in order to ensure fair competition. If the monopoly search engine is calling a business bad names, algorithmically or not, well, apparently France believes that's not fair competition.
Search engines do not call business bad names.
They don't call anything.
Search engines simply index the content of pages, and words that appear together on said pages. If thousands of sites routinely place one word next to another how is that Google's problem? Why not go after the web pages that were used to build the search database?
When I googled the quoted phrase "overly critical guy" and appended the word idiot, I came up with a page someone posted about you. Is this something google did? Is a court order in the offing?
Re:Censorship. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not advocating the decision of the court (and so the downloads of my post are just weird), I'm simply explaining why they made the decision. The search engine did call a business a bad name--it associated a negative term with the name of the business. If Google was just another search engine, nobody would care, but they're practically the gateway to the web and the #1 way that people find information about things.
Remember when Microsoft instituted a browser ballot? But they listed them in alphabetical order, and so Opera complained about their placement on the list, forcing Microsoft to randomize the order? Microsoft could have argued that they weren't placing the browsers in any sort of priority list, and that it was the order of the alphabet that placed them that way, but that wasn't the point--the courts decided that Microsoft's influence was so huge that, regardless of the reason, the list was biased against browsers that placed lower than others alphabetically.
The same is true here. Google didn't intervene and call anybody names, but their influence is so huge and dominant that the court has decided it is a violation of free market competition for it to libel (as they perceive it) a business. I'm not advocating any position; I'm just explaining why Google is being held to such a unique standard, just as Microsoft was.
Re: (Score:2)
It didn't create the association, it merely discovered it.
Re:Censorship. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's still not Google deciding that these words should appear in that order. It's understandable that the company doesn't want those words to be associated with them, but you have to admit, autocomplete doesn't really do anything but take the most used search terms and suggest them. So I'd say this company has bigger problems than Google's autocomplete feature...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Clearly you need to sue Goggle/Apple!
Lyonnaise de Garantie don't 'get' the Intarwebz (Score:5, Funny)
In my opinion, the French firm Lyonnaise de Garantie [lyonnaise-...rantie.com] to a man, are worse than crooks. They are the most foul and debase degenerates, slime of the lowest order. Fuck them, they are pox on the world and a waste of air. To call them a pack of worthless cunts would bring shame to roving packs of worthless cunts. Jean-Luc Berho, the VP of the company cannot bring himself to orgasm without unless he chokes a dog to death. Jean-Jacques Olivié, the president of that slithering pack of reptilians, cannot be trusted not to accidentally choke himself to death if left unattended with a stale croissant. May he catch syphilis from a drunken Armenian mule. Insurance frauds could learn something from these thieves, as could lamprey and other tubular blood sucking vermin.
But, hey, I could be wrong. After all, it is just an opinion.
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot, Google, monopoly, and moderation (Score:5, Insightful)
Google most definitely has a monopoly in web advertising...it's why they're being investigated in Europe for antitrust. The DOJ lead who went after Microsoft ten years ago considers Google a monopoly, and Eric Schmidt told the U.S. Senate that Google was "in the area" of being a monopoly. I think there's so much resistance to admitting it on Slashdot because "monopoly!" was an anti-Microsoft rallying cry for so many years, and to put Google in the same boat kind of stings a little.
I have to say, though, that watching the moderators attack anyone who even dares utter the words "monopoly" and "Google" in the same sentence is both amusing and sad. How many ongoing investigations are there of Google right now, particularly in Europe? I mean, come on. It's not trolling to point out that Google is friggin' huge.
I'm sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
...many other here will say it, but what would the French Court say if Google simply removed Lyonnaise de Garantie's website from *all* their results....
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)
Are you thinking of the case where a newspaper sued Google and demanded they remove links to them from all their pages? http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110508/16543114199/belgian-appeals-court-says-google-must-pay-up-linking-to-newspaper-websites.shtml [techdirt.com]
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110718/16394915157/belgian-newspapers-give-permission-to-google-to-return-them-to-search-results.shtml [techdirt.com]
Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Informative)
FOR FUCK'S SAKE STOP POSTING THIS MONOPOLY CRAP. You're the only one pushing it, and it certainly hasn't been established as a fact in any court I've heard of. If it *had*, Microsoft would be all over it...
A monopoly means more than just "has a lot of market share". Try reading up on it before you start throwing it around.
P.S. (Score:3, Funny)
By the way, I forgot to mention this in the last post, but Samuel Miller, the DOJ prosecutor who went after Microsoft also considers them a monopoly [cnn.com]. So your statement about Microsoft is somewhat amusing in restrospect.
Re: (Score:2)
By the way, I forgot to mention this in the last post, but Samuel Miller, the DOJ prosecutor who went after Microsoft also considers them a monopoly [cnn.com]. So your statement about Microsoft is somewhat amusing in restrospect.
Yeah, well, that's like, his opinion, man.
Also, I'd characterize your argument here as a fallacious appeal to authority.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, whether or not something is a monopoly is very dependent on whatever the court decides to say it is.
Gotta love definition by fiat.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
They're not stopping anyone from using another search engine. They just may be better, so people use their services more likely, because they may be better.
They're not stopping anyone from using another ad network. They just may be better, so people use their services more likely, because they may be better.
I recall a monopoly deliberately goes out of their way to make it impossible, literally, for others to enter the market. Last I heard, Bing and Yahoo were still being used to find stuff.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Interesting)
All nice and fine, but I guess we can agree that Google has a dominant market position in search engines, much like MS has/had in operating systems. Them deciding to delist a company means that a sizable portion of traffic to them is lost.
In a situation like this it doesn't really matter whether it is a "real" monopoly, even an oligopoly is bad enough. Imagine Google, Yahoo and Bing shared the market at 1/3 each. In such a case, either of them deciding to delist a company means a serious blow to traffic, even though neither of them has even 50% market share, let alone a monopoly position.
Search engines are not like your everyday oligopoly like oil, gas or power. Because everything is in reverse. An oil company deciding to not deliver to your country anymore doesn't really matter much, because you do not need oil from all of them. Just one will do. It's not that way here. You need the traffic, i.e. the users finding you in a search, from all of them, losing one is already a problem. The impact would be felt even if Bing or Yahoo decided to pull such a stunt, albeit maybe to a lesser degree than when a dominant engine like Google did it.
So, no, it's not a monopoly in the classic sense. But this isn't a classic case either.
Re: (Score:3)
Then maybe you shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds you. It is the only solution to a court order that is impossible to comply with fully. What is to say that the removal of the offending word won't cause another equally offending (in the eyes of this company) word from popping up automatically? No, the only real solution is to delist them totally to comply with the order totally.
Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Informative)
Are you for real? And who modded you up and me down? Google is absolutely a monopoly in web search. It doesn't matter if I'm the "only one pushing it" on Slashdot (which isn't true).
Monopoly means "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service." Google is the dominant search engine as well as the dominant web advertiser. It is most definitely a monopoly. But if you and the moderators don't believe me, how about the words of Eric Schmidt [businessinsider.com], who said in response to the question of whether Google is in a position that would subject it to monopoly rules: "We're in that area."
They're a monopoly.
Google has only 65% of the market share. That hardly sounds like a monopoly. Sure, they are the dominant player, but there are alternatives and switching to a different search provider has little friction, it's not like changing operating systems.
In comparison, Microsoft owns 80 - 90% of the operating system market (based on web client statistics)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Overly Critical Guy wrote:
Fucktard
=================
English comprehension test: Circle and connect the bolded words/phrases above that are synonyms. ( 1 mark; 3 minutes )
Re: (Score:2)
Size don't enter into it, my good man. See, libel is libel irrespective of whether the newspaper/TV station has ten viewers/readers or ten bleedin' million.
And if it ain't libel, it ain't libel and that's it.
Either way, this attempted ban probably contravenes EU laws on freedom of speech, competition and maybe consumer protection.
Re: (Score:2)
Size don't enter into it, my good man. See, libel is libel irrespective of whether the newspaper/TV station has ten viewers/readers or ten bleedin' million.
Was it intentional on your end that when I read that, I heard it in John Cleese's high-pitched "snooty" voice
In the US too, at least as an option (Score:2)
Every time someone rolls out something horrible like this they think it's a wunnerful thing. Well, not tal all of us. I find this stuff causes me to make typos far more often in searches, because of the distraction.
Re: (Score:3)
Have you tried NoScript?
Have to set it up in many places. I just wish "features" like autocomplete were disabled on default and the user was left to decide what they wanted to enable to enhance their experience. I find good ol' Google is getting on my nerves more often than not.
They should adopt as a motto: Just because we can, should we?
Show some balls google (Score:4, Insightful)
Show some balls google.
Disable everything that is google in France for 1 day and blame it on the court. In 3-6 weeks, when you have a valid fix, silently put that in.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Show some balls google (Score:5, Insightful)
It might hurt France more - for one day. After that Google is back and nobody trusts their services not to disappear again on a whim. That WILL hurt Google. A lot. For months or years. Globally.
It's a bad idea is what I am saying.
Re:Show some balls google (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
So he moves to the next town, a town with another plumber who has a history of not abandoning everyone because their feelings are hurt. Would you start a long term business relationship with this plumber?
The problem with Google is they can't simply shut off France for a day. That would have a long lasting effect on Google and only a short term one on France. Now closing up shop and leaving entirely is something that they can do, but then they would have to repair a lot of damage to their image if they wish
Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever French users search for "Lyonnaise de Garantie," Google should just return "Your search - Lyonnaise de Garantie - did not match any documents." And then a list of competing insurance companies.
There! Problem solved!
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Whenever French users search for "Lyonnaise de Garantie," Google should just return "Your search - Lyonnaise de Garantie - did not match any documents." And then a list of competing insurance companies.
There! Problem solved!
Did you really mean Mayonnaise?
Re:Simple Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if enough stories about this get posted to the web that mention the fact that Lyonnaise de Garantie didn't want its name associated with "escroc" - then google will end up indexing a ton of instances where Lyonnaise de Garantie's name is associated with "escroc". In fact it may be enough instances of "escroc" being associated with Lyonnaise de Garantie, to "guarantee" (pun intended) that it turns up as a common result. I hope this story gets great coverage.
Leglislating search results is just hopeless.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Good thing no one ever thought Microsoft was a monopoly. Or AT&T. Or Standard Oil. Or US Steel. Because none of them had an EXCLUSIVE supply for a market.
Remove them from google indexes entirely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remove them from google indexes entirely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't they do that a few years ago with some papers and such from Belgium, and then they came screaming back about it when their sites dropped around 80% of their traffic? I'm sure I read that here on /. a few days ago, well considering my memory it could have been a few years ago too.
Re:Remove them from google indexes entirely. (Score:4, Informative)
It's worse. Google was merely complying with a court order--sought by these newspapers themselves--to either pay the newspapers, or stop indexing them. Then, these newspapers lost 80% of their traffic, and decided to grant Google "permission" to disobey the court order they had just won at great expense.
Re: (Score:3)
Would've been sweet if Google decided to do no evil and heed the verdict to the letter. Sorry, can't do that, the judge has spoken.
But you may start a lengthy process to nullify that verdict and piss off the court for wasting their time. And if you still exist by the time you have it canceled, we'll put you back on the index.
Strange. Usually I'm not in favor of monopolies abusing their position...
hmm (Score:2)
Blocking France Completely (Score:2)
"Lyonnaise de Garantie crooks" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know whether Lyonnaise de Garantie are crooks, but this is the mother of Streisand effects.
Never mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
But are they? (Score:5, Informative)
Crooks, that is? One really has to wonder how many people they had to screw over for this auto-complete suggestion to be show up. That sort of autocomplete result is usually an indication of a fairly large number of people using those words in the same general context. Even now, the sixth suggestion for them ends with problème....
Maybe Google's argument should not have been that Google wasn't responsible, but rather that it's not libel if it is true (I'm assuming that this is the case under French law) or that it is not possible to defame something that is already a disgrace....
More to the point, maybe the company in question should focus more on improving their image by actually improving their customer service instead of just metaphorically wallpapering over the rotting walls. If enough people think they are crooks to cause the Google search results to suggest this for several years in a row, that strongly suggests a very serious problem with the way they do business. I'm not saying that Lyonnaise de Garantie is a bunch of crooks, but they clearly have a serious image problem, and you can't cure that kind of problem by trying to sue people into silence. Doing so can only result in the Streisand Effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, to be fair, all it takes is a story on a board like bash.org or xkcd or something similar that people remember and pull out as an example.
Try it. Type "little bobby" into the google search bar and guess what the first autocomplete result is.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but "Little Bobby" is not the name of a major company. There are probably hundreds of thousands of pages (if not millions) that link to or talk about that company. The number of them that use words like "crook" should be pretty low, statistically. The chances of such a word being frequently used in connection with that company due to a fluke or one brilliantly net-savvy person with a grudge should be fairly remote. Unless Google's algorithm absolutely sucks, it's far more likely that a lot of peop
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying that Lyonnaise de Garantie is a bunch of crooks
Google now thinks you did.
Well, now the term escroc is relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Now "Lyonnaise de Garantie escroc" is a valid Google term, because I may have heard about this ruling and want to read more about it. So, auto-suggesting as such is highly relevant to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Well that query works in Bing. :)
Sometimes suggestions reveal real public opinion (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, I like having the suggestions pop up (and not just for the fun factor). There have been times that a suggested result reveals the truth of something when the marketing and SEO have worked to whitewash the search results themselves. When people run into problems with a product, they will search for their problem rather than the marketing speak. I wish I could give my real examples, but I'm contractually/legally obligated not to. I'll contrive a working one instead (though the contrived one is not as solid as my real examples...).
Contrived example: Pop the words "MS Antivirus" into google search. "MS Antivirus" is a name of a piece of malware posing as security software. For me, the third suggested search is "MS Antivirus malware". Without having that there, the search results for "MS Antivirus" that declare it as malware are all below the fold. The results for "MS Antivirus malware" have the wikipedia entry for the malware itself as the first result.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a limitation of Google's ranking algorithm to me. Shouldn't they fix the ranking, rather than rely on an extral UI layer (aka "suggested search", that may or may not be turned on for a user)?
If you notice i
Gold old /. business plan (Score:5, Informative)
1. Do enough bad things that people in your country start adding their word for "crook" to searches with your trademark
2. Sue Google instead of fixing your reputation problem
3. ?????
4. Profit!
Re:Gold old /. business plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Better plan:
1. Do enough bad things that people in your country start adding their word for "crook" to searches with your trademark
2. Sue Google. And Bing and Yahoo and Yelp and so on!
3. Profit! (through the lawsuits)
4. Profit more! (because your crappy customer service no longer hurts you now that all review aggregators are forced to hide it)
Purely my opinion (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know whether Lyonnaise de Garantie are crooks [lyonnaise-...rantie.com], but I do know that they tried to censor the web to remove any association between Lyonnaise de Garantie [lyonnaise-...rantie.com] and crooks [lyonnaise-...rantie.com], or as the French say, Lyonnaise de Garantie [lyonnaise-...rantie.com] and escroc [lyonnaise-...rantie.com]. Which is interesting. I wonder what Ms Streisand in her lovely beach house has to say about it all.
Streisand effect in 3... 2... 1... (Score:4, Interesting)
So Lyonnaise de Garantie's website no longer shows up on searches for escroc. But I bet a fortune that "Lyonnaise de Garantie sues to stop being called escrocs" news reports will soon be one of the top search results for "escroc".
After all, I doubt the ruling covers news stories written, published and hosted by third parties.
Here's what we should do (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're on Facebook, post a new status message "Lyonnaise de Garantie escroc" - be sure it's flagged "Public" rather than "Friends only" or whatever. Tweet it too, if you're so inclined.
Whatever happened to Quaero? (Score:2)
The search engine project pushed by the French government?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It surrendered. Duh.
Good Fun (Score:2)
Just sent some spam via http://www.lyonnaise-de-garantie.com/contact.php [lyonnaise-...rantie.com]
Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC Lyonnaise de Garanti ESCROC
Google bomb (Score:2)
in 3, 2, 1...
crybabies (Score:3)
They really need to get a life. If Google offends you then DON'T USE GOOGLE. No one is forcing you.
Is this really what this world is turning into? A bunch of whiny pansies.
A Recurring Problem (Score:3)
Other case in France going the other way (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can make out, this case is making at least some headlines in France too, and the general sentiment is outrage at the company and at the court system, very similar to here. See these:
link 1 [journaldugeek.com]
link 2 [blogspot.com]
link3 [pcinpact.com]
However, more interestingly, the last link points to some other case where the judgment went the other way, i.e. Google suggesting a derogatory term in their search suggestions, and the French court finding them innocent. The text in French is here [pcinpact.com] (use google translate !) and shows much more common sense.
Interestingly, I do not recall seeing this well-reasoned judgment on the front page of Slashdot, much in the way of traditional news outlets not reporting good news as often as bad ones.
Re:troll post (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Especially with a lot of online magazines probably carrying a story titled something like "Lyonnaise de Garantie sues Google over being being labeled escrocs"...