Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Google auto-complete reputation woes!
Google algorithm and the auto-complete function has landed the search engine giant back in court again. This time it is a man from Japan who alleges that he lost his job with the auto complete bringing up criminal acts when his name is typed into the search box. The man demands that the defaming words be removed and that he gets compensated for all the embarrassment he has had to go through.
Clearly a case of reputation damage and though the court has ruled that the offending words be removed Google has towed the ‘not subject to Japanese law’ line. However, the present case is about compensation and yet again Google defence points out that such cases are rare and the algorithm decides things on what is already available online.
A man from Italy won a case against Google for similar reasons and so did a Frenchman who had to deal with words like ‘rapist’ being suggested with his name. Google does screen for pornography, profanity etc, so can easily oblige if a court sees it as having caused reputation damage to a plaintiff.
However, with Google claiming to have more and more requests from governments to remove content all this could well eat into the brand losing its sheen of being impartial based on its algorithm, which gets tweaked every so often to weed out spam and information of low value among other things. So will Google pay up??
To have a Wikipedia page or not? Small Business Reputation Management
Wikipedia began with the noble intention of providing all with free information on anything under the sun. So yes, the content should be impersonal or neutral and in an openly editable model. So unlike an encyclopedia, which is written by experts, the Wikipedia content is largely written by volunteers who do so without pay.
The big advantage: By virtue of being a favoured site by Google, the SEO or ORM implications of having a Wiki page for your small business are huge. Wikipedia pages usually rank on the first pages of Google and other search engines.
Should you have a Wikipedia page for your small business? Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook Timeline and Reputation Management
Facebook has finally rolled out the Timeline for all and all you have to do is go here and click ‘Get it now‘. The FB Timeline comes with a seven day grace period to delete stuff that you did (videos, photos, status updates) that you don’t want to be on your Timeline. Warning – When you first see the Facebook Timeline… you are in for a SHOCK!!
What you will see is every single thing you did since joining Facebook neatly arranged under a timeline of years and months. For users who have made the cheesiest status updates and other cringe-worthy quips( in hindsight) it will require a dedicated period of time to go back and decide what should be highlighted or removed from the timeline before its published for all to see. Yes, there is a ‘Publish’ tab to click after doing the necessary changes before the timeline goes live. So what are the advantages? Read the rest of this entry »