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I am going to sue Google (seriously)

Discussion in 'Directories' started by David26, Jun 11, 2012.

  1. #1
    We live in a generation now where a lot of people whine on the internet and take no action against governments and corporations that bully us around. I talk the talk and walk the walk and I am going to speak to my attorney tomorrow to find out if what Google is doing is considered legal. Years ago before Google banned all directories from their search engine results and robbed our hard earned PR, I was forced to find other work. Yes there are a lot of spam filled directories out there that needed to be shut down, but there were a lot of us, especially on this site, who offered quality directories and took the time and spent thousands of dollars on advertising to help webmasters increase their SEO in their related fields (like DMOZ which Google supports fully).

    After the career change now Google actually contacts members informing them of sites they do not like and tell the webmaster to remove their links from said sites. I get daily emails now from webmasters asking me to remove their link because Google told them it hurts their SEO. I am no lawyer but to tell another business to stop advertising with another business that they do not approve has to be illegal in some way. I will find out and take steps to sue them. I have the money since I had to totally switch careers even though I loved working in my home office as a programmer and marketer. Now I have to be away from home for 3 months at a time working 14 hour days just to survive all thanks to Google.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2012
    David26, Jun 11, 2012 IP
    xc06, silencer and wisdomtool like this.
  2. cPAce

    cPAce Peon

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    #2
    Well honestly, your gonna get flamed for this post. Just saying. But good luck.
     
    cPAce, Jun 11, 2012 IP
  3. David26

    David26 Well-Known Member

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    #3
    Well that is like Kmart telling all of their customers not to shop at Walmart. This is the same thing and I do not care if I get flamed this is an injustice and I will fight it.
     
    David26, Jun 11, 2012 IP
  4. HFlame7

    HFlame7 Peon

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    #4
    Sorry to hear that man.
    I agree, Google has no business contacting you and telling you what links to remove, nor should links from your website have any "negative" effects for your clients.
    Truth is, if Google has a problem with the links, instead of penalizing they should simply not give the links any credit.
    But I guess that's asking too much from Google.

    Hope everything works out for you.
     
    HFlame7, Jun 11, 2012 IP
  5. silencer

    silencer Notable Member

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    #5
    @cPAce: Why would he get flamed? He makes a very good case. I don't think it is as black-and-white as described, but when has Google ever been black and white? They deal in grey areas. Everything is "up in the air". They tell businesses to build their websites for humans, then because those websites don't adhere to a myriad of fairly unknown search engine rules, the businesses get penalised. The reasons the rules are "fairly unknown" is that because what was taboo yesterday is ok today, and vice versa and all anyone has to go on is Matt Cutt's endless if's, but's and maybe's or decade old SEO threads on forums that create more mis-information than real information.

    @David26: I agree with you. What business has the right to tell another business they cannot sell marketing/advertising? In Australia it is called a restrictive trade practice, and I've been involved in real-world instances where it happened, and saw the sneaky ways that companies get around it. It also highlights how strong companies who have a monopoly are, and why monopolies are so dangerous because without competition the company in power dictates terms and you have to cop it.

    When I was a bar manager many moons ago, we stocked softdrink and mixer products from a range of suppliers. Let's call them Coke, Pepsi and Cadbury/Schweppes. It would be restrictive trade for any of those vendors to somehow "force" their products on you. But, that's exactly what they do. They send a sales representative out to tell you that your ancient post-mix machine needs upgrading. They talk you into buying the latest model. Then you find out that model only works with that companies product. The sales rep then goes and checks your stock and orders products accordingly.

    That was how in the space of a few months, Coke infiltrated the bar, and by the time I left that job the other 2 companies didn't have a single product on the shelf.

    In Australia, we have two major supermarkets. Coles and Woolworths. Between the 2 of them they have taken over several industries (like hardware and liquor) and completely dominate all the markets they enter due to their immense buying power. All the great small stores that existed are gone. All the mom and pop stores. gone.

    They dictate how we buy things, and what we can buy. Fresh fruit, doesn't exist anymore. The fantastic products we would get from the Italian families running their own fruit shop (at a more expensive price) are no longer available. Instead we have the warehouse stored apples that could be months to years old before they get to the store. Sure they are cheaper but they aren't a patch on the real, fresh product. What happened?

    On the internet, this is the similar world that Google has created. It stinks, but there's nothing you can do about it when there isn't any competition. The reason people don't sue is because they generally don't win and small people don't have lots of money to throw away on making a point, no matter how valid that point is. They scrape together to buy the kids school uniforms and rage against the machine in the privacy of their own home.

    The bottom line is this. Google does have the right to stop people trading/selling on their trademark (pagerank). They went about it the wrong way back in 2007, and they've gone about it the wrong way with the Penguin and Panda updates.

    The visible PR number has been shown to be so flawed, and creates so much spam and underground black market buying and selling, that you would expect if Google was really serious about all this, they would simply turn off the ability to see the number. It would still be part of their algorithm. They could still trade on it as part of their business, and it would force the black market to dry up over night.

    But, instead they simply say you can't sell links to people. You can't use your business as a way to market and sell advertising. Your website might be fantastic, generate great leads and targeted traffic, but because it CAN send link juice or PR or whatever the hell you want to call it, then if you sell advertising you MUST be violating Google's rules, and you WILL get punished for it. Yup, it's ridiculous.

    I wish you well in your endeavour. Always happy to see the little guy striking out against injustice :)
     
    silencer, Jun 11, 2012 IP
    vegabond likes this.
  6. locke815

    locke815 Peon

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    #6
    Well good luck with that. I hope you can get what you wish for.
     
    locke815, Jun 11, 2012 IP
  7. soniqhost.com

    soniqhost.com Notable Member

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    #7
    Good luck, their algorithm is a proprietary code which allows them to rank websites as they like which means its going to be very hard to win a case on top of that they have billions of dollars in the back. I'm not saying your reasons aren't justified its just going to be costly and very difficult.
     
    soniqhost.com, Jun 11, 2012 IP
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  8. shenzorewildes

    shenzorewildes Peon

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    #8
    They are very powerful. We all can cry only but cant do anything really!
     
    shenzorewildes, Jun 11, 2012 IP
  9. David26

    David26 Well-Known Member

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    #9
    Nice post silencer thanks. I contacted my "normal" lawyer this morning and he told me that I need to speak with a corporate lawyer about this. I found one and the paralegal said that they will get back to me within 48 hours after reviewing more information.
     
    David26, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  10. higherluv

    higherluv Greenhorn

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    #10
    Bad. I just leave things alone - this way they can eat themselves up from their own doings.
     
    higherluv, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  11. ambrosiabhm

    ambrosiabhm Peon

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    #11
    I'd love to see how this lawsuit turns out!
     
    ambrosiabhm, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  12. oblivion19

    oblivion19 Well-Known Member

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    #12
    subscribed to see how it turns out.

    A piece of advice I would give is to represent yourself as small website/company incase this lawsuit gains any press. You can get great mileage if the lawsuit gets in to mainstream media.

    What I mean to say is like"David X. , a blogger on davidx.com sues google"
    Basically, become popular, get people to your website, a blog/whatever and monetize. Even though you may not win the case, you may get a decent following or popularity
     
    oblivion19, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  13. sultanofseo

    sultanofseo Notable Member

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    #13
    this is not true that no action is being taken against the government and big corporations. government gets sued on a regular basis. they dig a hole for construction and if someone falls in the hole and breaks the leg, there is a lawsuit. city and local government get sued all the time, even cops get sued for their action.

    talking about corporations, actually lawsuits are one of the big expenses for the large corporations. they have dedicated legal team taking care of lawsuits. not only public sue, but goverment also sues the corporations. you must remember the big anti-trust lawsuit by Justis department against microsoft few years back.

    google is not telling you or anyone not to advertise on your site or another site. what google says is that you cannot buy links or advertisement in a way that passes pagerank. this is artificial way of boosting pagerank, in other words gaming the system. this is perfectly legit to sell advertisement on your site, as long as the link has rel=nofollow added to it. this way advertisers get their advertisement to promote their sites or businesses and sites that sell advertisement are also in compliance with google policy of not selling links that pass pagerank.

    you do whatever you want to do since you now have the money to go after google. but few thousand dollars or tens of thousands of dollars would not do anything on a lawsuit against google. google has legal team that is few times bigger than lot of small corporations so they know what they are doing. they would not send a single word to the print media or digital media without having their legal team saying OK first. if you still decide to sue them, i would envy your courage and say best wishes.
     
    sultanofseo, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  14. YMC

    YMC Well-Known Member

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    #14
    It should be interesting to see if you can find anyone who will go up against the big G. Pretty much every other case has lost. The lone exception that I know of was with the authors against Google Books publishing their entire books online.

    Please do keep us updated.
     
    YMC, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  15. dscurlock

    dscurlock Prominent Member

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    #15
    I was in a car accident due to a foolish driver.
    I contacted an accident attorney, their legal sec said
    we will call you back within 1-2 days...
    they never called back...

    I think you will be sitting by the phone alot on this one.

    Google has the monopoly on the internet, its their house, its their rules.
    It doesnt matter if they run a lot of people out of business.
    They have advertisers to answer too; They do not answer to
    your personal needs, or even care if they toss anyone out on the street.

    The fact of the matter people put up all these spammy sites, and
    sites of little to zero value, and a shit load of legit sites get caught up
    in the middle; unfort there are no guarantees, just like the housing market,
    a lot of BS, and Fluff, and the house of cards start folding...

    people just do not get it, still today people setup spammy sites,
    and upload millions of pieces of total junk to the internet every single day....

    Of course, you can sue anyone you wish, how much money do you have?
    Or do you expect the atty to put his business up while you wait 5 years for your day in court.

    Your comment is just like everyone elses, they do this, they do that, I am going to sue, sue, sue...
    when in fact you are so ignorant on how much it would even take to spend a day with google....
    Then they will probably end up counter suing you, and you loose what few pennies you even have....

    The only entity that probably could even take on google is the US Government, and a win is not guaranteed,
    and they would spend millions in legal fees, and of course the tax payer would end up paying the bill if the govt loses....

    how much of the internet does google control?

    Big government, or big google, they control the market, they do what they want...

    You are less then a piss ant to them....

    in case you did not catch what I said before...

    Google is the monopoly of the internet....

    Look at it this way, when it comes to your site, its your house, your rules,
    you can allow or deny whatever links you like, but when you are on the
    internet, its googles house, its their rules, they can allow/deny sites/links as they want....

    Maybe blog networks should sue google also, for what? taking out the trash?

    How many blog networks are making $0 income now?

    good luck...


     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2012
    dscurlock, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  16. xc06

    xc06 Notable Member

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    #16
    one of the best threads in this section. I fully agreed David and support your action. What google did is simply prejudice, in favor of their business adwords.
     
    xc06, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  17. matt_62

    matt_62 Prominent Member

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    #17
    i want to wish you the best of luck with this, but i cant say that its a good idea. But everytime i see sites on flippa and then people buy them at 10 times the monthly income then i just cringe knowing that anyday there could be a tweak to the google code, and its all gone. Telling people links from one site are 'damaging'? man, if thats not illegal, then it should be. But unless you have boobs like Erin Brockovich, or a few million in the bank, the odds of being successful is low, and i would hate to see you lose money that you worked damn hard for vanish in a puff of smoke. Use half of what a lawyer will charge you for a week, and take your family to hawaii for a vacation.
     
    matt_62, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  18. wixkaz

    wixkaz Member

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    #18
    Good luck on this endeavor. Google is a law onto themselves and they have the power to ruin a lot of people's business without even giving an explanation. I am all for keeping the internet as free and unregulated as possible but these guys have way to much control.
     
    wixkaz, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  19. InFiNiTy™

    InFiNiTy™ Active Member

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    #19
    I swear if you win this, I please please please let us know! KUDOS TO YOU IF YOU DO! :)
     
    InFiNiTy™, Jun 12, 2012 IP
  20. coper56

    coper56 Greenhorn

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    #20
    I simply wonder why google would even consider bothing with someone else's business. Yes, we all know google is a giant but if they are going to abuse their power, they are rather destroying their name as well as future potential customers. If they are so big, why on earth would they let something so little affect them so much that they have to speak up about it. I also support you David, play it by day and see what happens. Best of luck!
     
    coper56, Jun 12, 2012 IP