Google
SERPs Anger UK Footballer
David
A. Utter
Staff Writer
Published: 2006-03-06
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews
covering technology and business. |
Arsenal and England international left back Ashley
Cole is displeased in a legal sense over Google's
alternative suggestion in search results for his name.
Whether searching for Ashley Cole at Google.com or
Google.co.uk, the search engine returns top news
stories, three organic results, and then the alternative
phrase Google thinks the user may have wanted to find:
"See results for Ashley Cole gay."
Cole's displeasure at Google first came to light in a
report from UK-based Pink News. The England defender
already has
lawsuits underway against two other British
publications for suggesting two Premiership players were
bisexual, even though he was not named in either paper.
Pink News said Cole's solicitor, Graham Shear, wanted to
find out why his client's name generated the search
result in question:
"I am keen to find out whether the decision to
automatically include the term "gay" to the keyword
'Ashley Cole' was an editorial decision or more
revealingly, one made by a computer based on the
volume of searches for 'Ashley Cole' linked to the
word 'gay'.
"I would be interested in when and what prompted
this and whether the process started since we
launched the cases against the News of the World and
the Sun or before. Perhaps Google can explain what
happened and why."
A Google spokesperson said in the report that the
listing would not be "initiated by a human with
editorial control." As of press time the suggested
queries still appear in Google when searching for the
athlete's name.
Google Sux
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