March 22, 2006
Another story in the saga of lawsuits has reared its ugly head again as an online company filed suit because they didn't get a high enough ranking in Google.
In a report a few days ago it was said that "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."
Hey, I wonder if France put them up to this? You know, now they want Apple to give away their secrets too, so that everyone else can take advantage of their proprietary systems.
When I listen to some of the points in the lawsuit, especially where they charge 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 guess they hired a publicist to take care of this. What a bunch of demagoguery "without warning." Oh, no! Then it spawned a "cataclysmic" 70% fall in its audience, which as a result they allege that their revenue also dropped 80%. Well welcome to the business world you whining crybabies.
Anyone that has been operating an online business for a while, knows that there is no way that someone should be relying on any one source as the key to driving online traffic, there has to be multiple sources and strategies in place.
I know the answer to this frivolous suit: the judge should impose a huge fine upon these hucksters and make others think twice about it when they try to destroy a company. When they want to look at the means of how they rank sites.
Seth Godin said it right when he mentions in a post headline:
The new SEO--lawyers
That's the old method the deadbeats use when they can no longer compete or they make stupid business mistakes; they sue. Can you imagine what would happen if some ignorant judge would rule in favor of this or allow a jury to even hear it? Now every single company that gets mad about a ranking from Google, can sue to get their SEO up. This ranks close to one of the most ridiculous lawsuits I've heard of.
I also like Seth's humor when he say "Perhaps the same strategy could be used on consumers who don't want to watch your commercials..."
Now this company is suing for search results. In the online world, there simply couldn't be anything worse if this is allowed to go anywhere. They'll destroy it for all of us. What company would stay in the business if you could be sued every time someone didn't like their search results.
Like I said, the only way companies like this learn, is to lose money. Wouldn't it be nice to see a huge fine be levied against this company for bringing such an outrageous charge against Google? I know one thing, I'll never do business with them again.
