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The Courts Government News

Google Responds to SearchKing's Lawsuit 452

Posted by CowboyNeal from the legal-parlance dept.
The Importance of writes "Back in October, SearchKing sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank, as previously reported. Now, Google has filed a reply and a motion to dismiss. LawMeme has both documents as well as analysis."
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Google Responds to SearchKing's Lawsuit More

Google Responds to SearchKing's Lawsuit

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  • If I were Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09, 2003 @07:59PM (#5051676)
    I'd just remove them completely from the search enginge. Google is a private company and has the right to exclude anyone they choose.

    • Re:If I were Google (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:24PM (#5051822)
      " Google is a private company and has the right to exclude anyone they choose."

      "Objection, your honor."

      "On what grounds?"

      "It's devastating to my case!"

      (okay, the reference is a little obscure. Hint: Jim Carrey.)

    • Re:If I were Google (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zmooc ( 33175 )
      And what would Google be winning by doing that? Nothing. Revenge is silly; it only makes you look unfriendly. Like palestinians or israeli's for example.

  • Previous LawMeme Coverage (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Importance of ( 529734 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:00PM (#5051689) Homepage
    Previous LawMeme Coverage here [yale.edu], including a nasty reply from the SearchKing himself.

    • Best quote ever (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:17PM (#5051785)
      The King does have a point: when your "business" consists of shoplifting and the corner store installs a security camera, you're going to go out of business quickly enough that an injunction is your only hope.
    • From the link you posted [yale.edu], Bob Massa (of SearchKing) writes:
      " If you take your web presence seriously, and accept that the words research.yale.edu means something, doesn't that put a responsibility on you to be open-minded and fair? To at least try to report objectively?"

      This guy is almost as whiny as the Bernard Shifman [slashdot.org] twit! If you look at what was written, it says, basically, "this is a loser of a case and a waste of SearchKing's money." In other words, James Grimmelmann doesn't talk to Google either, he simply looks at the case on its merits and proclaims it is a loser.

      I guarantee that if James stood on the opposite side of the fence it would be Massa proclaiming him a genius.

  • Silly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:01PM (#5051692)
    Google didn't reduce SearchKing's page rank, Google changed the page rank formula.

    • Re:Silly (Score:5, Informative)

      by OldMiner ( 589872 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:09PM (#5051746) Journal
      Google didn't reduce SearchKing's page rank, Google changed the page rank formula.

      If I recall correctly, Google changed its page rank formula in one simple way: It severely downrated any site that linked to SearchKing. Therefore, the link farms developed to pump up SearchKing's results were considered unimportant and did not boost its pages as they had previously. This was very much a move taken directly against SearchKing and only SearchKing.

      Not that that's a bad thing.

      • Re:Silly (Score:2, Insightful)

        by schwatoo ( 521485 )
        Why is it a bad thing? Did SearchKing have a contract with Google that they broke? Was he paying them at all? Was there some implicit agreement that SearchKing would be able to use google for profit? As far as I'm concerned Google's page ranking algorithm is its own property and they're free to change it as they wish. And as long as google keeps returning good results for me I'll keep using them.

        • Re:Silly (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Spazntwich ( 208070 )
          Did you read his post? He said "Not that that's a bad thing", meaning "That's a good thing".

          You're arguing with him, yet you agree with him.
      • Where did Google admit to downraking searchking specifically? They very well could have downranked ANY linkfarm as a part of their pagerank formula change which is what is implied in the law meme article.

      • Re:Silly (Score:3, Informative)

        by glen ( 19095 )
        This was very much a move taken directly against SearchKing and only SearchKing.


        Are you sure only SearchKing? I'm sure there must be other link farms and even geocities and other sources of noise that are penalized by google's formula.

        That's the service they provide, seperating the wheat from the chaff.

      • Re:Silly (Score:5, Informative)

        by reynaert ( 264437 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @09:56PM (#5052272)

        If I recall correctly, Google changed its page rank formula in one simple way: It severely downrated any site that linked to SearchKing.

        No, what they did was more general, everything that resembled a link farm was ranked down. For example, many blogs were also hit by the change.

      • If your intent as a search engine is to provide relevant results, you have to tweak your algorithm to remove the irrevelant ones. Since searchking is indeed irrevelant, it would be extremely susceptible to falling on its face for this. To be honest, I'm almost aghast that they had the gall to get mad about this.
  • I come up first ... does that make me the end-all-be-all best superdug because google says so?

    This is the same as sueing the "A" group in highschool for not deeming you cool and because of that your self esteem suffered and you became a computer science major.

    • Actually, Googles response is quite similar to this. They claim that page rank is an "opinion" and can't be proved true or false and is therefore free (protected) speech.

      They reference a court decision where a school district's bond rating changed, causing financial difficulty to the district. The court ruled that the organization issuing the ranking had a right to change it based on it's own techniques or rationales.

    • Oh hell (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      "This is the same as sueing the "A" group in highschool for not deeming you cool and because of that your self esteem suffered and you became a computer science major."

      Now why didn't *I* think of that?

      KFG

  • Honestly... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sayten241 ( 592677 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:05PM (#5051718)
    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.

  • no one is stupid enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bob@dB.org ( 89920 ) <bob@db.org> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:07PM (#5051726) Homepage
    to think they can win a case like this. these people are probably only doing this to get some free press (and it seems to be working). my advice to anyone would be; don't talk about it, don't write about it, and if you have to, don't mention there name.
    • So they're the "MacBeth" of the search engines?

  • SK (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:07PM (#5051727)
    SearchKing is a 'service' that says they will improve your score on search engines like Google. They do this by trying to exploit the algorithms of engines like the Google PageRank system. So Google updated their algorithm to prevent the abuse.
    • "SearchKing is a 'service' that says they will improve your score on search engines like Google. They do this by trying to exploit the algorithms of engines like the Google PageRank system. So Google updated their algorithm to prevent the abuse."

      And doesn't that deliberate manipulation amount to a "denial of service" attack against Google?

      SearchScum is taking money to manipulate search results...

  • SearchKing ... PlowKing ... RainKing ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by B3ryllium ( 571199 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:07PM (#5051728) Homepage
    Can I start up "Slashdot King"?

  • What a fool (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MasterSLATE ( 638125 )
    This SearchKing fool actually claimed monetary damages. What a dumbass, if I've ever seen one!

  • Google can do whatever they want (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jlleblanc ( 582587 ) <contact@jlleblBO ... minus physicist> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:08PM (#5051737) Homepage
    Google has the right to enforce any formula they wish, including a modified one or even an outright fudged one. They're a private company. They can choose to link to whatever sites they wish. They also provide the courtesy of delisting sites that wish to remain anonymous.
    • Yes, so long as that's what they claim to do. If Google wants to blacklist SearchKing and anybody who links to them, they should announce that.

      Somehow, I think Google has just a little too much in that "black box" they call PageRank...

  • Search King SELLS the lawsuit documents! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Richardsonke1 ( 612224 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:09PM (#5051744)
    Not only is SearchKing suing google, they are also selling (oh, sorry, they call it "making a donation") the legal documents. In order to get into the password protected site, you have to give them $20!
    • It's a bit tacky, specifically to say that you can't use the documents you pay for to disparage the company. (Remember, we're talking about Google's filings in the case.)

      Of course... you can get the same documents under a public domain license at the courthouse, or from what will be sure to be several websites that'll spring up to host PDFs that were obtained from scanning courthouse copies. So, if you're stupid enough to agree to a license on public domain work, so be it.

  • Darn it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by m_chan ( 95943 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:10PM (#5051750) Homepage
    I was rather excited when I read, on page 3:
    II. Table of Authorities
    United States Statutes and Other Authority

    Hustler Magazine v. Falwell
    485 U.S. 46, 53 (1988)

    Sweet! Larry Flynt will set me straight. So happily did I turn on to page 10, for those playing along at home.

    and it read:
    even when a speaker is motivated by hatred or ill will his expression [is] protected by the First Amendment
    which is totally not what I was looking for. I even checked under the staples.
    • That Falwell case was very interesting. It concerned a "fake ad" parody:
      "Jerry Falwell talks about his first time." The cartoon was intended to resemble a Campari alcohol ad. Hustler's ad suggested that Falwell's first sexual experience was a drunken, incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse. It also suggested that he is a hypocrite who preaches exclusively while drunk. A small print disclaimer at the bottom of the page said, "Ad parody, not to be taken seriously."

      Falwell sued and won a $200,000 judgment for emotional distress. However, the Supreme Court sent him home with nothing. A key factor was that Falwell is a "public figure," and so is more limited in damages he can recover. A rare 8-0 slam dunk [epic.org] on a controversial topic, this odd little case was considered a major victory for free speech and satire.

      Anyway, a far cry from anything here. I can't see how this case would survive the motion to dismiss.

  • SearchKing's Response to Google's Response (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NeuroKoan ( 12458 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:14PM (#5051776) Homepage Journal
    SearchKing has a posting of Google's response, presumably with commentary. The link can be found here [searchking.com] but you have to pay $20 to the "Legal Defense Fund" to view the entire documentation.

    Fortunately, my curiousity is outweighed by me desire to NOT give SearchKing money.

    • Legal Defense Fund? (Score:5, Funny)

      by RajivSLK ( 398494 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:36PM (#5051881)
      Wait a minute aren't *they* suing Google?

      It should be a "Legal Attack Fund".

      We should sue them for false representation!

    • Re:SearchKing's Response to Google's Response (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zurab ( 188064 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:57PM (#5051985)
      Especially at the bottom of the page the paragraph that reads:

      RIGHTS TO USE CONTENT OR REPRODUCE
      This site and all information contained within it are the sole property of SearchKing, Inc. and may not be reprinted, republished or used in any way, in part or in it's entirety, without the express permission of SearchKing, Inc. Violation of these terms, especially taking remarks out of context to support your own opinions, will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law.

      SearchKing, Inc. believes that if I take a remark from their website and form or support my own opinions is somehow a serious violation of the law, and "will be dealt with all the severity allowed under the law". What law do they speak of I wonder? What law is there that will restrict me from reading their publicly available content, taking some remarks and forming opinions on them?

      I thought I was impartial when I tried to access their site, but after reading this crap, I think they are bunch of morons.

      Oops, this may land me in court now.

  • Quote from an interview with the king himself. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by entrippy ( 14141 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:19PM (#5051795)
    "Jono Craig: One expected response from Google is that people should be careful what they pay for. They don't always get what they expect. That Google prefer algorithms to fight 'spam' but are happy to investigate claims of abuse manually if they need to. To me this would imply some form of intervention; both through public advice and possibly through filters or penalties to sites such as www.pradnetwork.com & www.searchking.com

    Robert Massa: To me, it only illustrates the reason Google has become as successful as it has. They run a good search engine at least in part because they care enough to investigate. I'm not asking for or expecting any special consideration. "

    So, he WAS all in favour of google doing what they like. Until it turned out to be something he didn't like. Uh huh.

  • More proof that this guy is a moron... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MasterSLATE ( 638125 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:20PM (#5051805) Homepage Journal
    According to the serachking guy's website, it says this specifically:
    We have no control over what google may or may not do. If they make a PR 9 drop to a PR 8, it doesn't mean that the site has any less link popularity, less traffic or less quality. It only means they are counting things differently. If the site was making you money, it should continue to do so, but remember, we have no way of knowing what you, google or the inventory partner will do at any given time. We are just the brokers.
    Hmm, that applies to your site too, buddy!
    People like searchking should be lined up and shot next to all the spammers.
    • People like searchking should be lined up and shot next to all the spammers

      Funny you should mention that, there's a post [yale.edu] at Lawmeme :

      First, according to OpenRBL [openrbl.org] SearchKing either IS, or is affiliated with, Mach 10 Hosting, a known spammer. I have to wonder if Bob Massa is in fact the owner of, or a principal in, Mach 10 Hosting (i.e. a spammer) in addition to being a purveyor of banner ads? I think it's funny that his web site's IP address (209.217.135.144) has a reverse-DNS name of "dave144.mach10hosting.com" instead of any name concerning "searchking.com"...

      We can save Bob Massa's bullet and have two for Alan Ralsky

  • ... that must be because Google reduced SearchKing's pagerank, I think searchking should sue them.
  • ... Well I certainly hope that Search King wins. If my company decides to block Slashdot because I post too much at work, I'll be able to sue them!
  • According to the analysis article, SearchKing is requesting $20 (basically a donation) for you to get access to view the filed documents of the suit on their site (same ones as hosted in the article). These are documents that are freely available to the public. By law.


    Helloooooo?!?!??!! McFly!!!!!

    • Re:$20 to read the documents? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:52PM (#5051956)

      SearchKing's order form also claims that your "donation" to their legal defense fund is tax-deductible. I'm no tax expert, but I thought a tax deduction was available only for donations to recognized charities, not to a for-profit company like SearchKing.

      Anyone want to file a complaint with the IRS that SearchKing might be a party to income tax evasion due to its misrepresenting itself as a 501(c)(3) charity?

    • According to the analysis article, SearchKing is requesting $20 (basically a donation) for you to get access to view the filed documents of the suit on their site (same ones as hosted in the article).

      Actually, after you pay $20 you will also get answers to some questions that they posed on their site. Not to worry, I have meditated and posted the answers below:

      DID GOOGLE DO IT INTENTIONALLY?
      Yes.
      CAN GOOGLE DO IT TO YOU?
      Yes.
      WHAT CAN YOU DO IF THEY DO?
      Sue.
      HOW IMPORTANT IS PAGE RANK TO PLACEMENT?
      Extremely.
      ARE THEY WORRIED ABOUT OTHER LAWSUITS?
      Yes.

      $20 please.

  • SpamKing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maxmg ( 555112 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:34PM (#5051869)
    Now, I might have this all wrong, but to me it seems that SearchKings way of increasing it's customer's page ranking is just another form of electronic spam. It exposes Google users to information they do not require and furthermore may obscure the *real* information they are looking for.
    This is exactly the same behaviour I see with email-based spamming. Any of the spammers tried to sue the manufacturers of spam-filter software yet?

  • Searchking's Web Site [searchking.com] has a page of News about their lawsuit [searchking.com] and Searchking's Comments on Google's Response to the Court [searchking.com] and their attempt to get the public to pay $20 for more details [searchking.com]. I wasn't that impressed with it, but maybe you'd have a different opinion....

  • Searching for SearchKing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by minesweeper ( 580162 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:42PM (#5051915) Homepage
    It's interesting to search for "SearchKing" on Google [google.com]. Back when this story first hit Slashdot in October, SearchKing's website came up somewhere on the fourth page of listings on Google. Now it comes up as number one, but their PageRank still remains at 4. It shows that there is some behind-the-scenes results manipulation going on at Google... which of course is their perogative.

    Another example was the Microsoft and "go to hell" [theregister.co.uk] incident which dissappeared from Google rather quickly once it became public.

    Incidentally, searching for "SearchKing" on SearchKing [searchking.com] doesn't even come up with SearchKing's front page, and the first result that is even close is number 7.

    • I think what needs to be regulated here is the "black box" formula that is PageRank. We don't know what exactly pleases PageRank and what upsets it, we just know that links to a page is a main factor but not all of the mix.

      I don't think we want the exact definition of PageRank to be made public... that'd make it far too easy for SearchKing-like sites to make PageRank useless by designing sites to bias the formula. However, I think some referee needs to be monitoring Google's movements so that they cannot making under-the-table changes to the formula while claiming their not. Google claims that they don't let sponsors pay to influence their PageRank system, but what way do we have to confirm that's true?
      • I think some referee needs to be monitoring Google's movements so that they cannot making under-the-table changes to the formula while claiming their not.

        We have no way of knowing that the new york times does not alter their reporting to suit their advertisers.

        We have no way of knowing that slashdot's moderation system is not somehow keyed to a secret agenda. There is evidence that the editors strip people of the ability to moderate without ANY PUBLIC SCRUTINY WHATSOEVER! (Gasp!)

        Consumer Reports could have a vendetta against General Electric and GE would be basically screwed. There is no government watchdog.

        The point is - just because people listen to publcation X does NOT give anyone the authority to regulate what X can say, how, or why X can say it. If the editors of X want to be sleazy, it is their right. The decision as to what constitutes sleazy or improper behavior belongs to the editors of X. The law intrudes on this in only a few areas - the legal, medical and financial professions only, for the most part. These three areas have special features that do not apply to google.

        I look at it this way: the people at google have developed a reputation for utility and authenticity, and a technology that backs that reputation (two seperate things.) These things together give them power.

        You are proposing a major power-play; you are saying, they have all this power, but they should not be in exclusive control of that power. Someone should referee them to make sure they don't abuse it. This means - some of their power should be taken away and placed in the hands of the public sphere.

        In the case of power derived primarily from material wealth it so happens I agree with you. Individuals who amass material wealth have far too much power in our society.

        In the case of reputation or know-how, I disagree totally.

        No governing agency should ever be able to go "people listen to you, so now we're going to start regulating what you say." Doing so not only impinges on the freedom of the party with a reputation, google in this case, but on the freedom of all those individuals who looked at google and were impressed with its quality.

        Likewise, no governing agency should ever be able to say, "you have unique skills, so now we're going to regulate how you apply them."

        In closing - the Editors of google are entitled to their freedom of conscience. Google belongs to them, the prestige and technology behind google are theirs and no-one should be able to co-opt their work for some other purpose.
      • You don't. This is called a "buisness secret". They could very well be letting people to pay for rank. However, they probably aren't, since people would have noticed. As far as regulating how they decide page rank, it's about as likely, and about as important, as regulating what you eat every day. Why the hell should Google have to do anything to support anyone elses buisness? Either your trust Google to have an objective pagerank (or at least biased in a way that aids your personal searches), or you don't, in which case you don't use or care about it.

  • Yet another reason why Google is the best... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sgtsanity ( 568914 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:44PM (#5051924)
    They wittily insult the plantiff in their legal documents:
    The PageRank values assigned by Google are not susceptible to being proved true or false by objective evidence. How could SearchKing ever "prove" that its ranking should "truly" be a 4 or a 6 or a 8? Certainly, Search King is not suggesting that each one of the billions of web pages ranked by Google are subject to another "truer" evaluation? If it believes so, it is certainly free to develop its own search services using the criteria it deems most appropriate.
    SearchKing = Owned
    • The PageRank values assigned by Google are not susceptible to being proved true or false by objective evidence

      Unfortunately, that's false. The PageRank values can be hand computed simply by using the PageRank formula, finding out the true values the objective variables are, and then a little algebra. The only thing that prevents SearchKing from doing that is the fact that they don't know the formula...

      Oh boy, Google's playing with fire now. Assuming this case makes it to discovery, SearchKing could claim that the PageRank formula is material evidence, and try to get a subpeona for it. At that point, Google would be on the defensive... they don't want PageRank published, or even in the hands of SearchKing. Anybody wanna sign up to be the court-approved mediator?
  • Google's terms states a jurisdiction of California? Why didn't they not argue that?

    And what about a counterclaim for fraud because they are ursuping the page ranking system and for adding pages for commercial purpose.
  • The reviewer states; "Google's first move is to ask the court to dismiss the action "for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." This is an early motion, and usually quite severe;

    Actually, it's pretty standard, as are most of the other moves mentioned by the reviewer, and which I read in the filings. No, I'm not a lawyer, but I've worked on lots of cases, including many tort cases, and that's my opinion.

    That's Just a Burglar Alarm -- Ignore It! [xnewswire.com]

  • Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alpharoid ( 623463 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @08:59PM (#5051995)
    Let me try to understand this: some spammer is charging money from other spammers to exploit and devalue Google's search service, and annoy Google's users at the same time with irrelevant results. When Google takes appropriate action against this, the spammer sues?!

    Yeah, right. Next, I'll be sued by spammers for deleting their junk mail without reading it, and depriving them from their principal source of income.

  • Interesting lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @09:05PM (#5052027)
    Granted, I'm not an expert on lawsuits, but this one seems more complicated than most people see it.

    I don't think SearchKing is trying to get Google to undo the changes it made to its PageRank algorithm. I think SearchKing is trying to use the fact that Google changed its PageRank in order to get a massive settlement out of court.

    The CEO of SearchKing is trying to force Google into a position where they will either have to give him a huge stack of cash or they will have to reveal more detailed secrets about the workings of PageRank in court. Google's entire business depends on PageRank remaining a trade secret. If I were Google, I'd fork over the cash if it looked like it might come down to that.
    • If it goes to court, SearchKing wouldn't be able to use the data on PageRank to further its business. They'd be under NDA, and they'd be foolish to think Google isn't technically competent enough to find and prove any breach of the NDA should SearchKing try to skirt it.

  • Why Google is So Important (Score:5, Interesting)

    by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @09:06PM (#5052033) Journal
    Searchking hasn't been the only attack on Google. There's also Daniel Brandt, the Google-watch guy, who thinks that Google ought to be regulated, because it's so important. Both of these people are wrong - the Searchking guy because he's a parasite, and the Google-watch guy because, as near as I can tell, he's one of those misguided people who wants to tell everybody what to do because he knows better but does not in fact understand what makes the Net work so well, which is that anybody can put any material they want out there.

    Well the reason Google is so important is that so many people use it, and the reason so many people use it instead of Yahoo or Altavista or Northernlights or Hotbot or LongDefunct.Com or Excite.com or Teoma or some of the other search engines out there is that they do a really excellent job. I used to use Altavista, who were not only the original big search engine, they were one of the best in terms of coverage, as opposed to Yahoo who had much better indexing but nowhere near as many pages. If you wanted to find something obscure, you'd use Altavista, but if you wanted to find something common, it might be hard because Altavista would get 50,000 references that you could look through 10 at a time. I switched to using Google because their search engine did a really good job of usually having the information I wanted in the first page or two, often in the first one or two references, as well as because their pages were lean and mean and not cluttered with dancing broken Javascript ads, and I've occasionally found the cache to be valuable for finding information that was once on the web but isn't any more.

    As far as Daniel Brandt's rants about how the government ought to be regulating Google and PageRank because so many people use it, that's purely backwards. The government could accomplish any positive aspects of his goals by building their own search engines with their own page ranking algorithms, but if they go messing with Google, they're not only likely to censor some content and artificially inflate things they want to propagandize, but they're likely to make it less likely to have the material I want near the top, destroying the Pagerank in order to save it.

    Some search engines have tried to make money by letting people pay for good placement - the pundits yell at them for it, and the public tends to use those engines less because they're better at finding advertising drivel than interesting content. Lots of web sites try to game the page ranking systems on all the major search engines, typically by including relevant keywords many many times in comments or meta-things, or by including them in small print at the bottom of the page, and the main reason the system doesn't get swamped by this is that the better algorithms try to detect this manipulation and neutralize it or seriously downrate for it. Otherwise the search engines would have a high proportion of uninteresting material near the top, mostly pages that are really just spam. If Google's PageRank didn't protect itself against whatever techniques SearchKing is using, he'd be doing the same thing, making it much easier to find pages people pay to promote than pages that are rated high because they're actually interesting. (I've got slightly mixed feelings about that, because his stuff seems to look less obnoxious than banner ads or dancing javascipts, and is usually on pages I don't ever read...)

  • Exhibit "C"
    www://pradnetwork.com/rules.htm (website page)

    'page can not be found'
    www is not a registered protocol.

    there goes the defence :o
  • If you go to http://www.searchking.com [searchking.com], there is a link at the top titled "Google Confesses" [searchking.com]. He makes a handful of references to the contents within the site, including legal documents, and of course, his own "personal conclusions" about the situation.

    The paragraph that got me rolling was:

    "In these documents, you will find answers, (according to google), to questions like:

    DID GOOGLE DO IT INTENTIONALLY?
    CAN GOOGLE DO IT TO YOU?
    WHAT CAN YOU DO IF THEY DO?
    HOW IMPORTANT IS PAGE RANK TO PLACEMENT?
    ARE THEY WORRIED ABOUT OTHER LAWSUITS?

    You can learn answers to these questions and more ---- but not for free. It's going to cost you $20 to see the documents. The $20 for the password to view these papers is not a sale. It is a donation to the SearchKing legal fund. "

    W * O * W

    That's so stupid it's just simply impressive. I have this morbid curiosity to find out just how many people would spend $20 to read this moron's "insights." Me thinks I've learned more from my cats.

    I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

    Google is a site designed to be a resource for US. That is their mission. They don't give a flying fsck about providing a profit center to some other company--nor should it be considered their responsibility to support.

    Gads.

    The apocalypse must certainly be arriving Monday. Or, at least, I hope it is.

    -buf

  • Crap...I'll get sued next (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @09:46PM (#5052215)
    I went to altavista and type
    +ozzy +osbourne -searchking

    I am hurting their business.

  • Larger Question Answered (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aggressivepedestrian ( 149887 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @09:59PM (#5052289)
    In the section about the larger questions this lawsuit raises, LawMeme writes:
    Perhaps a search engine is important enough to be treated as a regulated utility, the same way that water, gas, and the cables over which search requests travel are. Google is good, most netizens seem to think, but what if it weren't? What if it became an arbitrary dictator, raising up and throwing down web sites at will. That's what SearchKing thinks Google has become already, or at least that's one major question raised by this suit.

    The obvious answer to this "larger question" is this: if Google becomes an arbitrary dictator, giving popular sites low rankings, they will quickly lose their dictatorship. Imagine if a search for "apache" gave apache.org a PageRank of 346. Google wouldn't last long.

    But if Google gives SearchKing sites a low rank? Well, nobody seems to be complaining but SearchKing.

  • SearchKing is just a portal scammer (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dexheimer ( 621938 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:19PM (#5052395)
    The SearchKing website looks no differen't than those web-portals for squatted urls. But they promise such good results! So here are some query response:

    Search: "Fuck You"
    -1. Get Paid To Surf The Internet!
    -2. Where to find music CDs, DVDs, select MP3 music tracks, free music download
    -3. Never Be Sued Again!
    -4. Get Paid to Surf
    -5. Kudos and Compliments for You and for Those Who Bring You Happiness
    -6. (see 5)
    -7. How To Start A Money Brokerage Business

    and I think you get the point. Perhaps a more 'relevant' search query could yield better results:

    Search: Car
    -1. 765469
    -2. License Plates - Vanity License Plates
    -3. Next Honda of New England
    -4. Ramsfield.com Auto Parts

    Hmm. Better results than the search for "Fuck You". But I still wanna know the logic that went into making "765469" the number one result. Oh, and another nice feature is that the linked pages come complete with a SearchKing adbar in a differen't frame.

  • Quoth the server, 404 (Score:4, Funny)

    by VJTod ( 563763 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:27PM (#5052436)
    I had copied Exhibit A from the PDF, and didn't pay attention to the URL I got from Acrobat
    http://w.qooqle.com/technolouv/index. html

    Anyway, this was qooqle's (not google's) response to my request
    http://paradise.qooqle.com/404.html
    "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pron surfed weak and weary.
    Over many a strange and spurious pronsite of 'hot XXX galore'.
    While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning.
    And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour.
    "'Tis not possible", I muttered, "give me back my free hardcore!"
    Quoth the server,
    404


    OCR wins again.

  • But, Searchking is supposed to be great! (Score:3, Informative)

    by zjbs14 ( 549864 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:28PM (#5052444) Homepage
    According to this posting [google.com] in alt.business from 1998, Searchking was voted to be the next major search engine!

    Maybe they can sue google for taking that away from them too.

  • Enough is ENOUGH! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Morel ( 67425 ) <eugenio.invisibleinfo@com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:49PM (#5052517)
    I find this lawsuit to be more than ridiculous. I find it disgusting.

    To sue Google for acting in its best interest and with a view to retain its effectiveness and credibility is nothing short of despicable. Whether SearchKing did it because it truly believes it is right or because it seeks publicity is irrelevant. Its actions are illogical:
    a) SearchKing has come to depend on Google (as it stated) because Google can be trusted.
    b) Google can be trusted because its algorithms are pretty accurate.
    c) SearchKing tried to interfere with those algorithms, seeking INACCURATE results from Google.
    d) Google modified said algorithms to counterbalance the interference, seeking its much-valued accuracy.
    e) SearchKing sues Google.

    I've read the LawMeme analysis [yale.edu] and SearchKing's opinions [searchking.com] and all I see is another unscrupulous dotcom trying to discredit a very respectable service to serve its own needs, regardless of the damage it may cause. So, fellow /.'ers, I propose we take an active role in this wretched little saga: I propose we write to EVERY SINGLE CLIENT displayed on SearchKing's site and tell them that we despise the SearchKing lawsuit against Google and that we will NOT visit, support, recommend or in any way help them until they have moved to another hosting service or convinced SearchKing to desist in their legal efforts. The same treatment should be directed at SearchKing's advertisers, even if one of them is, sadly, Penguin Computing.

    Last time I checked, /. had over half a million subscribers. I think that should get their attention. Don't you?


    Cheers,
    Morel

  • I love their slogan... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hendridm ( 302246 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:55PM (#5052537) Homepage
    "SearchKing - Building a Better Internet"

    Hah! Only a market droid could believe that spamming search engines and paying for unmarked higher ranks (thus polluting accuracy) make the Internet a better place.

    What is it about their name that make me think of Barney Gumble? Perhaps Google should consult the legal advice of Mr. Search - "Call Mr. Search, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Search"

  • Space, the final brassiere (Score:4, Funny)

    by edog1203 ( 193278 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @10:55PM (#5052542)
    Hmmmm, perhaps this Internet King can provide faster nudity....

  • Good news for DNSBls (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Charles Dodgeson ( 248492 ) <jeffrey@goldmark.org> on Friday January 10, 2003 @01:47AM (#5053158) Homepage Journal
    The strength of Google's case here (as described in the analysis) is also good news for DNS-based blacklists, such as SPEWS. While it seems obvious that publishing such a list should be protected on free speech grounds, it is nice that such a close analogy is being tested.

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