This is interesting. From the article:
SAN FRANCISCO, March 18 (Reuters) - A parental advice Internet site has sued Google Inc., charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.
The civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, on Friday by KinderStart.com seeks financial damages along with information on how Google ranks Internet sites when users conduct a Web-based search.
Google could not immediately be reached for comment but the company aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system and asserts its right to adapt it to give customers what it determines to be the best results.
KinderStart charges that Google without warning in March 2005 penalized the site in its search rankings, sparking a “cataclysmic” 70 percent fall in its audience — and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.
I am not suprised, and frankly will not suprised if this keeps happening. The problem here is that Google’s search algorithm is proprietary, and as such leave the door open for people to accuse them of cheating, or price-fixing, or or or… You know, this kind of reminds me of Microsoft’s various legal episodes, where they were not giving out certain API calls.
What should happen here? I think that Google has a right to maintain their search algorithms, yet at the same time, we are all influenced, both positively and negatively by Google, especially those who are running web based businesses. This is a big problem, whether people think so or not.
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