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Features: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Friday, January 24 @ 18:23:07 EST Contracts
Big news in case 02-CV-1457 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (better known as SearchKing v. Google): on January 13, Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange denied SearchKing's motion for a preliminary injunction.

As readers of Lawmeme's previous coverage of the case know, SearchKing sued Google after its PageRank fell precipitiously, removing many of its affiliated sites from the top pages of Google search results. In addition to money damages, SearchKing also asked the court to order Google to restore its PageRank and to turn over the source code to its ranking engine. It was those requests that Judge Miles-LaGrange denied, at least for now.

The ruling itself is here; LawMeme's full coverage continues inside.

The ruling is definitely a Google victory. In essence, Judge Miles-LaGrange adopted Google's overall view of the case. Crucially, she adopted Google's argument that its PageRanks are "opinions" protected under the First Amendment, rather than demonstrably false "facts." At the same time, she rejected some of Google's miscellaneous claims around the fringe of its argument. One should take these lesser holdings with a grain of salt, precisely because they were "dicta," decisions that weren't necessary for the overall ruling to come out the way it did.

A few key quotes from the opinion:

  • "Contrary to Google's contention, the disclosure of the source code would not alter the status of the parties, and the Court notes that the disclosure could be accomplished through a protective order or by submission under seal, thereby preserving the confidential nature of the information." (page 5) Mmm, protective order. You heard it here first.

  • "The preliminary injunction would not afford SearchKing substantially all of the relief to which it may be entitled after a trial on the merits because it would exclude money damages." (page 5) Again, you heard it here first -- and again, Google didn't need to win on this particular issue because Google won on a larger question, that of whether the injunction was mandatory or prohibitory. The court said it was "mandatory" because it "requires Google to affirmatively act [sic]."

  • "There is an important distinction between difficulty in ascertaining damages and unqualified guesswork. In the case at bar, the latter applies. Because of the speculative nature of SearchKing's damages, and the inability to establish a direct causal connection between the PageRank decrease and the alleged damages, the Court concludes that SearchKing has fallen short of demonstrating irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief, particularly in view of the applicable heightened standard of scrutiny." (page 7)

  • "The Court further notes that the integrity of the PageRank system has already been compromised by virtue of the manual decrease to SearchKing's PageRank. Google's decision to intentionally decrease [sic] PageRanks for reasons unrelated to the factors ordinarily taken into account by the mathematical algorithm that produces the PageRank has distorted the objectivity of the PageRank system. Reestablishing previously, and objectively, determined PageRanks would not cause substantial injury to Google." (page 8) Note this one closely . . . apparently SearchKing's demotion was "manual." SearchKing's PageRank didn't fall; it was pushed. Veeery interesting. This fact doesn't change my view of the case, but it might change some people's views.

  • "While Google's decision to intentionally deviate [sic] from its mathematical algorithm in decreasing SearchKing's PageRank may raise questions about the 'truth' of the PageRank system, there is no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false. A statement of relative significance, as represented by the PageRank, is inherently subjective in nature. Accordingly, the Court concludes that Google's PageRanks are entitled to First Amendment protection." (page 9)

    This quote is the heart of the opinion, and the heart of the issues raised by this case. I agree with its application here and I think the principle makes sense. At the same time, I wonder whether the principle is perhaps unnecessarily broad. A statement that SearchKing was more significant than Google, say, would strike me as verging on the demonstrably false, on the basis of such objective statistics as page hits, opinion surveys, and link counts. Does every "statement of relative significance" deserve absolute First Amendment protecton? I'm not certain.

  • "Because the PageRanks at issue are protected speech, the Court concludes that under Jefferson County, SearchKing's tort claim is likely barred by the First Amendment." (page 11)

  • "While it could be argued that Google acted maliciously and wrongfully as to SearchKing, the Court concludes that Google's actions were nonetheless privileged." Note the phrasing carefully: the court did not need to rule on whether Google's actions were malicious or wrongful, because its First Amendment analysis rendered that question irrelevant. (page 11)

  • "SearchKing consciously accepted the risk of operating a business that is largely dependent on a factor (PageRank) over which it admittedly has no control. The fact that the company with sole control over that factor has unilaterally changed the impact that the factor has on SearchKing's business cannot give rise to a claim for tortious interference with contractual relations." (page 12)
Finally, keep in mind that the case is still live. SearchKing might still come back with some legal ace up its sleeve or some smoking-gun factual allegation. On the other hand, Google's motion to dismiss is still pending, which might lead to an early termination. Wherever the case goes, LawMeme will be there.
 
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Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Saturday, January 25 @ 13:25:00 EST
You said:
Note this one closely . . . apparently SearchKing's demotion was "manual." SearchKing's PageRank didn't fall; it was pushed. Veeery interesting.

And completely in line with Google's own Response [research.yale.edu].

Search King’s sole complaint is that Google lowered its PageRank for pages on
Search King’s site. This action, however, was undertaken by Google because Search King
had engaged in behavior that would lower the quality of Google’s search results and that
was designed to manipulate the integrity of those search results.


SearchKing attempted to degrade the quality of Google's product. Google took steps to prevent that. What's the problem?


[ Reply to This ]

Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Monday, January 27 @ 10:33:35 EST
As Search King's attorney, I can tell you a Rule 59 Motion to Alter Judgment was filed along with Search King's Response to the Motion to Dismiss. In those pleadings we show the Court Google has a patent on PageRank. It also has been presented by its "inventors" as truly objective. (how does one "invent" an opinion?) If Google continues on its path of First Amendment protected opinion, there could be objections to its patent filed. Something to ponder....


[ Reply to This ]

Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 1)
by SearchEthos on Monday, January 27 @ 12:37:21 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.searchethos.com
Perhaps this is too basic, but why is there "no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false"?

Let "true" = PageRank (or be equivalent to the product of its mathematical algorithm).
Let "false" = manually altered or tampered PageRank.

That is, I hope it was not a rhetorical question. One can't prove the truth or falsehood of a "relatively significant value" because the value itself is relative. But one can show why one page is more relevant for a search term or phrase than another page. That is, the criteria for relevancy are not a wholly subjective issue. Google's entire algorithm already assumes there is a set of objectively-accessible criteria that needs to be met in assessing relevancy. Further, the more successful a page is- in meeting the criteria- the more Google rewards it (hypothetically) with a higher PageRank and a higher ranking in the results for its particular keyword(s).

Beyond establishing how well any particular page meets Google's algorithm (for particular search terms), isn't grading open to being challenged on the basis of "fairness". And hasn't the Court already raised the criticism of compromised objectivity (of the PageRank system) when manual adjustments to the results of the algorithm are made?


[ Reply to This ]

Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Monday, January 27 @ 16:10:37 EST
If we look at the "Findings of Fact", we can see this phrase:


FINDINGS OF FACT

Page 3 - The PageRank is derived from a combination of factors that include text-matching and the number of links from other web pages that point to the PageRanked web site. The higher the PageRank, the more closely the website in question supposedly matches the search query, and vice versa. The highest possible PageRank is 10, and the lowest is 1.



I'm curious to how this might have effected the decision as to whether PageRank is an opinion and, being no US lawyer, curious to what it might mean. When we talk about page rank there are two possible things we could talk about PageRank (the algorithm and the topic in question) or page rank (the position on the results pages). The quote listed above represents neither.


PageRank is a pre-calculated value and therefore can have no textual relevancy at all. It is query independent. Obvious pre-calculating it for every possible term is impossible.


A page's rank in the results pages does depend on textual relevancy, however it is not rated on a scale of 1-10.


It does not make sense to me, that a decision can be made that something is analogous to another case if the maker of the decision does not understand the specifics of the something in question. What was described in the findings was neither PageRank or the search engine results.


So what does that mean? And what effect does it have (if any)?


[ Reply to This ]

Objective or subjective? Both. And still an opinion. (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Monday, January 27 @ 19:40:05 EST
I would agree that Google's assignment of a pagerank is a statement that cannot be proven demonstrably false; and that even if it is based on a software algorithm, it is still an opinion? Why? Let me explain: Does Google use objective criteria to assign pagerank? Generally, yes. That's how they can automate pagerank - via an algorithm that represents their criteria. So how can this be subjective? Two ways. 1. Manually adjusting the results produced by the algorithm (e.g. what happened with Searchking; or downgrading sites that users report as Spam; or manually adding in sites that are missed by Googlebot; or banning sites that violate their TOS). Doing this doesn't necessarily invalidate the results that Google produces. You could look at it as correcting the results - after all, no algorithm is perfect. For example, reducing or removing non-relevant sites that show up high in the results due to spamming. As a Google user, I appreciate this additional clean-up effort. Granted, it could theoretically be abused. And anyone's at liberty to disagree with Google's opinion here. The question is whether they can force Google to change that opinion? 2. Google's choice of algorithm (and corresponding tweaks) are also subjective. The simple proof of that is if there was one single objective way of assessing the value of a web page, all the search engines would pretty much make that their goal. Their relative success would be proportional to how well they implement that 'perfect' algorithm. We do know there are several search engines out there and some of them may work better for you than others depending on: your needs; how you search; what kinds of results you are looking for, etc. What comes out as right (or top or 'true') as a result of one algorithm isn't necessarily right for others. Also if Google had a single objective algorithm that could return a 'true' or 'false' result, they wouldn't need to update their algorithm (Google Dance) regularly to stay relevant. (And we would all still be using Alta Vista, which had a very good algorithm of their own once upon a time). In summary, Can Google manually tweak a page's ranking or position in the search results? I think so - whether or not I agree with the particular tweak they did depends on the tweak, but my opinion doesn't really matter (unless I set up my own search engine). Should Google be able to tweak its algorithm, even if that results in drastic changes to particular sites' pageranks or position in the search results? Definitely. That's the whole service they offer. If they didn't do this regularly, their 'frozen' results would eventually lose relevance (most likely from spammers filling the top of their results) and I'd have to go find myself a new search engine to use. Not a lawyer - just my 2c.


[ Reply to This ]

Objective or subjective? Both. And still an opinion. (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Monday, January 27 @ 19:43:43 EST
(Sorry - someone please delete my previous messed-up post. Via manually tweaking lawmeme's posting algorithm :) ).

I would agree that Google's assignment of a pagerank is a statement that cannot be proven demonstrably false; and that even if it is based on a software algorithm, it is still an opinion?

Why?

Let me explain:

Does Google use objective criteria to assign pagerank?

Generally, yes. That's how they can automate pagerank - via an algorithm that represents their criteria.

So how can this be subjective?

Two ways.

1. Manually adjusting the results produced by the algorithm (e.g. what happened with Searchking; or downgrading sites that users report as Spam; or manually adding in sites that are missed by Googlebot; or banning sites that violate their TOS).

Doing this doesn't necessarily invalidate the results that Google produces. You could look at it as correcting the results - after all, no algorithm is perfect. For example, reducing or removing non-relevant sites that show up high in the results due to spamming. As a Google user, I appreciate this additional clean-up effort.

Granted, it could theoretically be abused. And anyone's at liberty to disagree with Google's opinion here. The question is whether they can force Google to change that opinion?

2. Google's choice of algorithm (and corresponding tweaks) are also subjective.

The simple proof of that is if there was one single objective way of assessing the value of a web page, all the search engines would pretty much make that their goal. Their relative success would be proportional to how well they implement that 'perfect' algorithm.

We do know there are several search engines out there and some of them may work better for you than others depending on: your needs; how you search; what kinds of results you are looking for, etc.

What comes out as right (or top or 'true') as a result of one algorithm isn't necessarily right for others. Also if Google had a single objective algorithm that could return a 'true' or 'false' result, they wouldn't need to update their algorithm (Google Dance) regularly to stay relevant.

(And we would all still be using Alta Vista, which had a very good algorithm of their own once upon a time).

I for one wouldn't mind Google tweaking their algorithms to weed out commercial link farms, people buying expired domains that used to have high pagerank, etc.

In summary,

Can Google manually tweak a page's ranking or position in the search results? I think so - whether or not I agree with the particular tweak they did depends on the tweak, but my opinion doesn't really matter (unless I set up my own search engine).

Should Google be able to tweak its algorithm, even if that results in drastic changes to particular sites' pageranks or position in the search results? Definitely. That's the whole service they offer.

If they didn't do this regularly, their 'frozen' results would eventually lose relevance (most likely from spammers filling the top of their results) and I'd have to go find myself a new search engine to use.

Not a lawyer - just my 2c.


[ Reply to This ]

PageRank: An opinion or a patented invention? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Tuesday, January 28 @ 18:22:57 EST
PageRank: An opinion or a patented invention?

Google vs SearchKing case is turning into a case in which PageRank or Larry Page himself, not SK or Bob Masa, may end sitting in the court bench.

The court ruling (1) "further notes that the integrity of the PageRank system has already been compromised by virtue of the manual decrease to SearchKing's PageRank. Google's decision to intentionally decrease PageRanks for reasons unrelated to the factors ordinarily taken into account by the mathematical algorithm that produces the PageRank has distorted the objectivity of the PageRank system. (2) While Google's decision to intentionally deviate [sic] from its mathematical algorithm in decreasing SearchKing's PageRank may raise questions about the 'truth' of the PageRank system, there is no conceivable way to prove that the relative significance assigned to a given web site is false." (3) The court has "de facto" declared PageRank an opinion not to be taken or proved as true or false -and as an opinion- is protected by the First Amendment.

Certainly the court is wrong in this regard when arrived at this decision based on a reference case: Moody's case. SearchKing lawyer is right: Moody did not hold a patent on the metric utilized in the reference case and brought to the court's atention by Google's lawyers. Patents are not protected by First Amendment and indeed can be challenged and invalidated if found known art or opinions rather than objective inventions. LawMeme editors and readers should read SK response to the court's decision carefully.

It should be pointed out that the case was not dismissed and SK can now move forward to seek a copy of the source code of PageRank, which SK lawyers may intend to do. The court has already provisions in place for that possibility. "Contrary to Google's contention, the disclosure of the source code would not alter the status of the parties, and the Court notes that the disclosure could be accomplished through a protective order or by submission under seal, thereby preserving the confidential nature of the information." Google is very much aware of that possibility and may prefer to settle rather than reveal the source code of the PageRank "opinion".

Opinions (like all opinions expressed in this forum) are subjective not objective matters. As for Google or Larry Page, well, could you have a patent or a PhD doctoral thesis or a grad degree earned based on opinions? Can you? SearchKing lawyer has already suggested in one post of this forum that they may seek the invalidation of the PageRank patent if Google continue to push the "opinion" issue.

In the event that Google settles or even wins this case, could Larry Page be at risk of losing both, his patent and his degree at the hand of business competitors and Google "enemies"? It appears so. Regardless of the outcome of this case, that could happen, wherther we, SK or Google wanted or not. Larry Page got a patent on claims for an "objective invention" not on subjective opinions. Shouldn't the USPTO take note of this case? Certaintly.

Stanford, as any law school, should re-examine this case as a textbook case, too. Aside from SearchKing, could other companies or interest groups use the court findings to try to invalidate the PageRank patent or Larry's thesis on PageRank after this case is over? Certainly. Do they (Google) deserve it? Not sure but probably, yes since they have opened a can of worms. Should complaints be filed at the USPTO seeking the invalidation of the PageRank patent? Possibly. Could that be a successful endevour? Hard to say but the balance is in favor of common sense. Should it be fair for Google or Larry Page? Well, reality bites and playing with the Scientific Method as lego toys is not real Science.

The point is that, even wining the case against SearchKing, Google loses in the long run. For all practical purposes Google's lawyers have asserted -and the court has found- that PageRank is an opinion not to b

Read the rest of this comment...


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Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Wednesday, January 29 @ 09:07:19 EST
Please read

http://toolbar.google.com/terms

and remember it was the Toolbar PageRank upon which PRAN was based.


[ Reply to This ]

Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Wednesday, January 29 @ 13:18:44 EST
criminal ????

So now it's a crime for a webmaster to sell links that google doesn't like?

I was pretty much agreeing with the gisdt of these posts about serchking being a spammer, but criminal ?? How many google employees post here anyway?

It seems to me that if the serchking people didn't break any international, federal or even local laws, but google, by their own admission, alters their algorithm to specifically try to cause damage to an entire network of sites, then it surprises me as to who exactly your calling criminal.



[ Reply to This ]

How it can be perfectly valid to manually tweak an algorithm. (Score: 1)
by idril (idrilblog@hotmail.com) on Thursday, January 30 @ 11:52:17 EST
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Most people, particularly non-IT specialists, tend to think of algorithms as being exact formulas for determining a fixed value – like a + b = c.

By definition, though, an algorithm is simply “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer” (Webster's). You don’t necessarily need a computer to follow an algorithm, although it helps you be more efficient.

This post explains how useful algorithms can return results that aren't perfect, and need tweaking.

Let’s say I want to display a list of several words rhyming with “glow”. And let’s say my computer can read text, but doesn’t easily understand pronunciation (like most software today). So I write an algorithm that says:
  • Take all the words ending in “-ow”

    That works – blow, low, grow, crow, mow, row, bow. But it also picks up “plow”, which fits the algorithm that I wrote but not the result that I want. So I need to manually tweak my algorithm.

    Whether I do it by saying:
  • Take all words ending in “-ow”
  • Now, if the word is “plow”, exclude it from the list

    Or I do it by building a dictionary of all the English words and their pronunciations, and teach my computer how to understand pronunciation notation like “/’plau/”

    Or I do it by building extremely complicated sound recognition software, record the pronunciation for each word, and have my computer read out the word and then analyze how it sounds…

    Should it matter how I make the correction? Would you agree that, given the objective I want to achieve, a correction should be made? Does it even matter whether you agree or not?

    Does it matter whether I discover the error myself (wilfully changing the results returned by my algorithm), or whether someone else (like a user of my program) points it out to me and complains about bad results?

    In this case, it’s easy to agree whether or not the correction is “valid”, because the criteria I used are generally agreed on by most people (unless there's a country out there that pronounces "plow" or "glow" differently than I do). It's not as simple as that for criteria of “usefulness” or “relevancy”.

    In any event, algorithms can be wrong sometimes, or not give you the result that you are looking for.

    In this case, Searchking’s disagreement with Google isn’t about Google’s algorithm. It’s about Searchking / PRAN’s place on the search results. Google wants to provide surfers with the most relevant links. In their opinion Searchking’s artificially-PR-inflated sites aren’t relevant; Searchking insists that they are, and that Google should be made to say so on their search engine. Who’s right?

    You could poll all the readers of this thread and you would come up with at least two (and likely more) opinions about that. Google and Searchking have their opinions too. In a nutshell, that is what the court says is protected speech.

    As I said in my previous post, I’m not a lawyer – but I do have a Computer Science degree, so I now feel a bit more qualified to share my 2c on this particular thought.


  • [ Reply to This ]

    Relative Significance, Opinions, and Patents (Score: 0)
    by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Thursday, January 30 @ 15:21:58 EST
    A statement that SearchKing was more significant than Google, say, would strike me as verging on the demonstrably false, on the basis of such objective statistics as page hits, opinion surveys, and link counts.

    Would you say I was lying if I told you that SearchKing was more significant to me than Google? The statistics you mention are measures of popularity, not significance. The significance of search results refers to their significance to the person doing the searching. This will vary from person to person and may even vary from search to search for the same person. For example, one time I may do a search for 'lawmeme' because I'm looking for this website. Another time I may do a search for 'lawmeme' because I want to know whether its been referenced in major news outlets. The first time, a page on CNN about a Lawmeme article, would not be relevant at all. The second time it would have major significance.

    Of course it is possible to make general statements about which websites are likely to have the greatest significance to the greatest number of people regarding any random search. Some of these statements, e.g. 'A page that contains the search terms is more significant than one that doesn't', are so obvious that are practically truisms, but the results are still a prediction of peceived significance, an opinion about an opinion.

    On a related note, someone claiming to be an attorney for SearchKing posted a comment here, suggesting that Google's claim that PageRank is an opinion could invalidate its patent application for its method of generating and applying PageRank. Maybe I'm missing something here, but that argument seems patently absurd. The invention produces opinions, but the invention is not an opinion itself. I produce websites, but I am not, myself, a website. It does, however, raise an interesting question: can the results of an automated method of analysis applied to objectively observeable data be non-objective (i.e. an opinion)?

    Methodologies don't have consciousness, and therefore cannot have opinions. The same data, processed by the same algorithm, will always produce the same results. The algorithm won't change its mind one day and produce a different result. On the other hand, methodologies and algorithms are created and maintained by human beings who do have opinions. The goal of the developers and maintainers of Google's PageRank algorithm is to develop an automated way to produce results in an order which conforms to their opinion of the significance of these results. To the extent that they've been successful, the results of the algorithm are a reflection of their opinion. Are 'reflections of opinions' covered by the first amendment? I wish I knew.


    [ Reply to This ]

    Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
    by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Thursday, January 30 @ 18:31:27 EST
    would everyone please keep in mind search results do not equal page rank. The page rank at issue here is the patented "method" referred to on the Google Tool Bar. This is different than the placement of a web site within search results. TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.



    [ Reply to This ]

    Google: A PageRank of 11 out of 10? (Score: 0)
    by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Saturday, February 01 @ 12:05:24 EST
    Google: A PageRank of 11 out of 10? is the title of this post, but it could be "How objective, subjective or ethical Google is?"

    The court ruling "further notes that the integrity of the PageRank system has already been compromised by virtue of the manual decrease to SearchKing's PageRank.".... "Google's decision to intentionally deviate [sic] from its mathematical algorithm in decreasing SearchKing's PageRank may raise questions about the 'truth' of the PageRank system..."

    It appears there is more to the tampering story (of PageRank values), showing this may not be unique to SearchKing.

    According to an article written by Chris Raimondi back in Nov 2002, ( http://www.searchnerd.com/pagerank/ ), and conveniently ignored/dismissed by certain SEOs "gurus" and their sites, Google gives to itself an irrisory PageRank value of 11 out of 10! Webmasterworld.com site has an entire forum with Chris_R and many other webmasters discussing the subject at ( http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/8627.htm ). One post in the forum seem to suggests that a particular architecture of XML tags in connection with PR values may be involved.

    If true, I am not sure, what Google wants to prove. The message webmasters and many are getting from Chris Raimondi findings is this: "I assign this 'scientific', algorithmic scale to all these sites across the web 'objectively' and normalize them from 0 to 10, but I'm above the scale 'subjectively' based on my 'secret patented opinion', so I'm an 11". Now, we should pay atention to Chris's findings since he is a third party, not involved with the Google-SearchKing case.

    Mr. Raimondi's findings have been verified by many others and certainly will be relevant to the Google-SearchKing case. Since the arbitrary manipulation of PR values is now a public discussion matter, not unique to the Google-SearchKing case, it may be a matter of time for consumer groups and other interest or focus groups to join the discussion. Why? It seems there is a pattern here.

    [Another discussion group in the Webmasterworld.com site ( http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/8908.htm ) is openly suggesting that a Google partner (Thomas Register and its huge network of sites and industrial and manufacturing EZ pages) is spamming Google and getting away with that. We are not sure if those allegations can be proved, yet; in the court of law or in any other forum. All these discussion groups and posts in the LawMeme forum have a commonality: How Google business practices are perceived by the public, consumers and webmasters. I thought is was worth to mention as the story may has "legs"]

    Back to the present discussion... Now since PR values do not necessarily spread linearly across a network of sites, it could be interesting to find out how could a PageRank of 11 (in a scale from 0 to 10) affects other sites? Are they pushed down the scale equally? Could a site already "voted" as a 7 is indeed a 10, 9, 8?

    It is not a secret that many prefer to invests in ads placed in sites according to the sites PR values. So have they been mislead when a PageRank value is pushed down by the PR of sites that are 11 instead of 10, 9 or 8? It seems you have an edge over competitors if you own an "objective" or "subjective" metric, which on top of that is patentable and subject to manipulations. So, where is the ethic in that? Who is the real manipulator here?

    On the other hand, a PageRank value of 11 out of 10 contradicts both common sense and a PhD thesis or algorithm. On top, could it be perceived as a deceiving practice since it could have the same effect of a "price fixing" practice across a network of electronic entities which rely on the 'objective metric' ?

    Certainly one can say "I don't care if Google is a 200 or 200,000, as long as my site PR is not affected". True. Anyone has the right of conveniently look the other way and try to excuse Google, but that doesn't help, either. Besides, it is not

    Read the rest of this comment...


    [ Reply to This ]

    Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 1)
    by rascal on Saturday, February 01 @ 14:42:28 EST
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    If Google can penalize, so can Google award for advertising dollars??? What are the price collusion or fair trade practices implications of such action?


    [ Reply to This ]

    Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
    by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Saturday, February 01 @ 14:44:19 EST
    If Google can penalize, so can Google award for advertising dollars??? What are the price collusion or fair trade practices implications of such action?


    [ Reply to This ]

    Re: SearchKing update: preliminary injunction denied (Score: 0)
    by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Monday, February 03 @ 12:31:04 EST
    from what I'm getting about this case is not whether google can ban pages or not, it is about HOW they decide to ban who for what reason.

    Unless I'm reading it wrong, the argument is not about their right to run their own engine the way they want. It's about applying different sets of rules to different sites for different reasons.

    Posting rules and penalties for breaking those rules are one thing, but penalizing people for something that the advertiser gets to do is wrong and calling the non-advertiser a spammer is not going to make it right. Either they can be trusted to be fair and unbiased or they can't.


    [ Reply to This ]

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