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youtube.com - Musician and Best Buy employee, Keith Parsons, rocks his Best Buy holiday campaign audition.
105 Comments
- szelij, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29If people can sue because they rob a house and can't get out of it, they'll sue Google for perceived 'injustice'. It's a crazy world but i hope he loses a lot of money on his lawyers.
- ripismoney, on 10/12/2007, -8/+35It's Google's search engine, and they have the right to search (or not search) anything they please. Unhappy with them? Then either admit you're screwed or try to start yet another "Google Killer" search engine that is just a waste of web space and a domain name.
- lordthor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Google's search ranking is, as it states, Google's "opinion", and thus protected by free speech laws.
- EdShroomhead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22I am an employee of a site similar to KinderStart. I remember when KinderStart started out, they were constantly spamming us (and I'm sure millions of others) with ads for their site. KinderStart's traffic went way up as a result, but then it came crashing down. The main reason I saw for this, was that I could never see the appeal of their site. It was just ... boring. If it wasn't boring, I'm sure all those visitors would have told their friends, and instead of KinderStart simply relying on Google for their traffic, they would have had many repeat visitors. It sounds like since they were relying on Google for visitors, people visited their sites once, to never return.
I think the main reason for their legal suit though, is to gain traffic ... to get their name out in the media. And it may work for a while. They may get "10,000,000 page views a month" again. (I don't believe that number for a second.) But history will probably repeat itself, and they'll likely find themselves losing traffic again, as time goes by.
Our site has been gaining traffic steadily since 1997. We get more visitors than KinderStart. We've never relied on Google, spamming (I'm not even mentioning the site name in this post), or other means of gaining traffic. All of our traffic has come through word of mouth, and repeat visitors. And that's just the way we like it. - olegk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Google is so gonna win that. What google should do is, hire a team of the most expensive lawyers they can find, and when they win the case, sue the firm for the lawyer fees.
- Braulio, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It doesn't matter if it's ethical, they took them out of the search as a CHOICE which they are free to make. There is no way they can win against Google. Let's say I decided make a company, wouldn't I only hire the good, qualified people? Google is also picking and choosing, call it unethical, or whatever you want, I think it's smart.
- raccettura, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8If your business sucks... sue a successful one.
/american business at it's best. - drawkbox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Well then every magazine, top 10 list, blah blah can be sued. This will get dropped quickly as Google will argue that the algorithm is responsible not direct human hand, and establish the rights of robots to have free speech and rights (much like the corporation has). Google will then be their Creator. And then the robots will kill us.
- andr3y, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9they are big, but if the firm cannot produce reasonable argument such that Google did it intentionaly or there is a flaw in their ranking system, they can be upset all they want.
on other hand this all could be for show to get some attention to themselfs. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7no that would be justice served.
/Revenge is a dish best served cold - zaid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7idiotic. obviously google is gonna win this. KinderWhatever has no say here, as they have many other means of advertising its website other than google.com, and saying google is an "essential utility" nowadays doesnt make any sense, because its a private company. unless you're satisfied in making google a publicly funded company, it has every right to hide its formula for site rankings. The way the article is saying it, it sounds like this site was also sent to the "sandbox" fore "black hat" practices...
- TheCardinal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Computers "opinions" being covered by free speech is starting to sound like the future is here.
- cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is bust a gut funny, if you go to their website KinderStart.com you will find smack in the center of the page running almost all the way horizontally an advertisement bar. Of what you might ask? Ad's by Google of course.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@locojones - read the article. Google has previously prevailed in a similar case using the same legal theory.
FTA - "In 2003, Google persuaded a federal judge to dismiss a case filed by Oklahoma City-based Search King Inc. after its search ranking abruptly fell. Google argued its search ranking formula represented an opinion protected by the First Amendment, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange agreed."
The constitution and case law is on Google's side. - cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7These are the same kind of people that will pay for a ranking. Apparently fairness is not fair when it works against you.
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm GLAD this piece of crap site isn't high up in the index. I hate it when crap sites come up in my searches. Good for google for punting them to the back.
If you have a question for the Kiddie site about why they are taking this action, there is some contact information on their about page:
http://www.kinderstart.com/about.html - jimphelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The point here is "what did they do wrong?" Google won't say, they just banned the site, and thousands of others, some legitimately, and some not. Google needs to communicate better with proprietors so as to not destroy them unnecessarily. I'm not saying they should give any of their secrets up, Google does NOT have to give any secrets up, just point out the offending reason for possible ban. What Google is doing now is hurting business for some unknown reason, and that serves no-one.
- CharlesGriswold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4A company freely chooses to construct websites designed to mess with Google's indexing bots. Google then freely chooses to not index said website, because they don't like having their indexing system messed with. How is that unethical on Google's part?
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Maybe their site just sucks?
- tavisjohn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5LMAO What loosers! Not EVERYONE can be ranked #1!!!! Someone has to be the bottom of the list! Want to rank better, well GET A LIFE! Google Rankings are not EVERYTHING!!!!
- psyon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6"This time, KinderStart is the one making accusations of free-speech violations - in Google's case, by reducing the traffic sent to Web sites that have been wrongfully punished."
Google is not reducing the traffic to their site, they are just no longer increasing it. - MoeB, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Well you can always just get sued for it. I dont think you understand the importance of business ethics. People go to "school" for it.
- kaniz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Some days the internet just pisses me off. Well, more morons on the internet who have no concept of how it works and start sueing people as a result.
- SnowSurfns, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I guess they have to do something to get their traffic back, suing google might get them on CNN for 30 seconds.
- tito13kfm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have a personal site that I use for a bulletin board for friends. It has been growing and I recently submitted it to google (a month ago). According to my apache logs google has spidered it a number of times since then, but it still does not appear in google's listing when just searching for the domain. I have added some static pages, a robots.txt, I even have participated in their Google sitemaps program, but no matter what I do I can't seem to get added to the search engine.
This is only a minor inconvenience to me, but I could see how this could greatly harm a company operating on the internet. Google's methods are a bit too secretive. - cdreiling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Here is a screen grab so we do not burden them with extra traffic. Which I am sure they want.
http://img354.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kinder3er.png - gorndog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Kinderstart is a search engine that competes against Google. Google knows what it is doing.
[Correction: Maybe Google doesn't know what they are doing ... Googling the keywords "search engine" lists a bunch of competing search engines, but to reach Yahoo! in the results you must navigate to page 2 of the results. Oh, and Google.com comes after Yahoo! even.] - Zuggy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It seems like Kinderstart.com is taking a page from the RIAA. Instead of making a good product, they sue somebody.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23 Simple things...
1: Their site is really really bad... www.kinderstart.com man thats bad...
2: They have google adsense on their page, and yet are trying to sue google. lmfao
3: Its not googles responsibility to give them a good 'rank' google ranks as they see fit... if your page happens to have a low rank... o well... time to take a few lessons on SEO - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2kinderstart.com is a parrental search engiune so doesnt that say that they just want to get hits by parents and kids
- MoeB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"A company freely chooses to construct websites designed to mess with Google's indexing bots. Google then freely chooses to not index said website, because they don't like having their indexing system messed with. How is that unethical on Google's part?"
well once you become such a big service on the internet you have to take some responsibilities. A site that is not listed on google may just not exist on the internet. Thats how popular google is right now.
Its like what Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker "With great power comes great responsibility" :-D - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Is it evil to invoke a lesser evil to combat a greater evil when the end is good? Our beloved Captain Malcolm Reynolds wouldn't hesitate for a second in such a circumstance.
Does Google's "do no evil" policy apply to the means and the end, or is it "not evil" if the ends justify the means? - mtekk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anyone notice the search bar that also uses google among other search engines? Yeah I did notice the Google ad, how ironic. I guess Google could further alienate the site by closing it's adsence account, that'd be funny.
They may have been dropped due to spamming? I know of several sites like is one that have tried to spam my blog, within a day or so they no longer exist on google, which is a good thing. Maybe, just maybe this retard was spamming people, if he/she was then that would be illegal and Google had every right in the world to alienate them. Besides their website adheres not no standards what-so-ever and really should look better than a old Front Page created POS from 1998. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There are more than enough tips and guides to increase your page rank.
there are only few ways that google will banish you from what i know
one is dmca complaint but you would see the complaint if you search a search term that would have found the page in question.. search for "kazaa lite" if you want an example.
two is bad code.. google is more picky than most browsers.. i know it skips pages with "&id=".. they really need to just educate themselves and they can get back onto the google index...i doubt google just cut them to be mean or for competitors. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think Google will prevail using the same legal theory mentioned in TFA that their search results are an opinion, and are therefore protected by the 1st Amendment as free speech.
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the trouble is... that they are very close to the only game in town. which elevates the need for them to fair. having said that... i think google... at least to this point in time is trying hard to be one of... or THE good guy. it may be impossible for them to be fair. so where does that leave the honest guy that is getting a raw deal. it leaves no recourse.
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2>But what if I put a "Terms of Service" in my robots.txt that says by spidering my website the search engine
i was about to say the same thing. anyone who runs a web site knows the mercileless pounding you get by googlebots. unless you're a big site they might well use your bandwidth and servers more than anyone else. the robot.txt is leaky. if someone using your system doesn't do it just right you get indexed... - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh ***** that. If you want to be at the top of the search rankings, make a good web page so that other people link to you.
- cgwas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"mysterious methods"? It cross indexes hyper links and URLs, and ranks pages depending on how many other sites link to it. The only time they edit the index themselves is to blacklist people who try to cheat the aforementioned system.
- colinodell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Google isn't a search engine company, its an advertisement agency. Besides, the people at google don't choose to drop websites at random; perhaps nobody was searching for his site? In which case, why bother worrying about it since people don't search for it in the first place?
And don't make me sue digg if anybody gives this a thumbs down. - Vortech89, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Some people these days will do anything to get their hands into someone's wallet. I'm getting really tired of people like this.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, UnkinderIdiots may be surprised to discover California's Anti-SLAPP laws, which entitle a civil defendant to collect up to 3x costs from a plaintiff that is abusing the legal process. I think bringing a frivolous lawsuit qualifies for Anti-SLAPP penalties, but IANAL. If Google has the venue moved to CA (if not already there), it may get interesting...
- locojones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The First Amendment protects a citizen's right to freedom of speech, but only from government interference. Because private parties are involved here, the Constitution has absolutely no application. Please stop digging the parent comment.
- CharlesGriswold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2*shrug* So use Yahoo. It's not like *anybody* is locked into using Google. Really, the only reason that Google is so big and (arguably) powerful is that people like using it. If they start to really suck, people will use something else.
- holdemcharts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LOL, I wonder if this story will actually help the companys page rank.
- twisted12, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8exactly. It's google property therefore they have the right to send anyone they please to the "sandbox"
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or maybe news of the lawsuit has simply increased interest in the site, and the new Google rank reflects that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1when the revolution comes, people like this will be the first against the wall.
- takeda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Either google fixed their page rank or they're lying, looks like currently their rank is 7
http://www.google.com/search?client=navclient-auto&ch=61609179520&features=Rank&q=info:http%3A//www.kinderstart.com/ - AzBaja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Look what google did to BMW when it sent them to the sand box. Google is just like micrsoft, just with more fanboys.
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