Utility Wants $17,500 Refund After Failure To Scrub Negative Search Results 110
mpicpp Points out this story about Seattle City Light's anger over negative search results and its inability to get them removed. Seattle's publicly-owned electrical utility, City Light, is now demanding a refund for the $17,500 that it paid to Brand.com in a botched effort to boost the online reputation of its highly-paid chief executive, Jorge Carrasco. Brand.com "enhances online branding and clears negatives by blanketing search results with positive content" in an attempt to counteract unwanted search engine results. City Light signed a contract with the company in October 2013 and extended it in February 2014. The contracts authorized payments of up to $47,500. Hamilton said that he first raised the issue of the utility's online reputation when he was interviewing for the chief of staff job in early 2013. "All I saw were negative stories about storms, outages and pay increases and I raised it as a concern during that interview," he said. "And then after I started, [CEO Jorge Carrasco] and I discussed what we could do to more accurately represent the utility and what the utility is all about, because we didn't feel it was well represented online." Thus, the Brand.com contract. City Light says that it only ever thought Brand.com would help it place legitimate material in legitimate outlets—talking up some of the positive changes that have taken place at City Light during Carrasco's tenure. Instead, it appears to have received mostly bogus blog posts.
Re:Who likes their utility? (Score:2, Informative)
Not mine. Everybody here loves the Power Board. Of course, that's most recently because they started offering high-speed fiber internet and compared to Comcast, anybody would be decent, and they're just plain AWESOME.
Now true, some people did complain about the TVA flooding their homes, and Ronald Reagan waxed eloquently about how horrible they were, but the reality is...the people in the area LIKE the TVA, and don't want some Southern/Duke/Enron company coming in.
Re:hope they win (Score:2, Informative)
...I do think there needs to be some crackdown on bullshit advertising in the SEO/PR sector.
Oh please! The very premise is based on fraud. People should just learn to ignore it. And we desperately need alternatives to Google. It is so heavily compromised. It's hardly anything more than a barroom trivia and shopping site.
The article "Jorge Fiasco" wants you to forget (Score:4, Informative)
Short Fuse: Jorge Carrasco's Polarizing Tenure at the Top of City Light [seattleweekly.com]
I also see that the deal with brand.com has cost Jorge Fiasco a six figure pay raise: The Seattle Times: No pay raise for City Light CEO Jorge Carrasco [seattletimes.com]
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray says he will not give City Light CEO Jorge Carrasco a pay raise, citing “judgment” issues, including a contract aimed partly at boosting Carrasco’s online image.
Murray made the comments at a City Hall news conference Wednesday.
The Seattle City Council had authorized a pay increase of up to $119,000 for Carrasco, who currently makes $245,000. Murray’s office previously had said he was considering raising Carrasco’s pay by $60,000.
Re:The article "Jorge Fiasco" wants you to forget (Score:4, Informative)
Another article Jorge Carasco would like you to forget: The Seattle Times: City Light leader Jorge Carrasco fell for copper con [seattletimes.com]
Last year, two men claiming to be members of the Cherokee Nation who had traveled from Oklahoma came to Seattle with a simple goal: score some scrap copper.
Dressed in beads and fringed suede, with one wearing a cap that said “Native,” they headed to the offices of Seattle City Light, where they chanced upon its superintendent, Jorge Carrasco, in the lobby. They told him they ran a nonprofit that taught disabled children how to make jewelry and needed some copper wire.
Minutes after meeting them, Carrasco authorized the men to be given some scrap.
But the two were actually con men. Once inside City Light’s secure facilities, they were able to drive off with 20 tons of copper wire and scrap metal worth $120,000.