Re: Some web sites collect salacious gossip and charge $2000 to remove it

Tom,
When you write "Google, et. al. encourages this type of behavior" are you
saying that you believe that Google *intentionally* encourages this
behavior or simply that the availability of powerful search tools, such as
those provided by Google, tends to encourage this behavior by making it
more possible? Please forgive my asking, but, on the Internet, it is
sometimes hard to tell exactly what someone's words mean...

For the record, the Times article does indicate that Google is, and has
been, willing to help address these issues:

> "Until recently, Google would remove a website from your results only if
> it could cause financial damage, such as by exposing your Social Security
> number. Now *Google will remove other harmful content*, including revenge
> porn and private medical information. At the end of 2019, it introduced a
> new category of information it will take out of your results: “sites with
> exploitative removal practices.” *Google also started down-ranking some
> of the “complaint” sites*, including Ripoff Report." [Emphasis added.]


What more do you think they should or could do?

Part of the problem here is that those who are accused on these "complaint"
sites have no way to respond in place to the claims that are made against
them. But, we could fix that. It seems to me that the Babcock's, and
others, would have benefited from tools that allowed them to annotate the
improper posts with their own discoverable statements contesting the claims
made. A combination of the W3C Annotation Standard + (CredWeb and/or
ClaimReview) would allow that. For instance, an extension to Hypothes.is,
or a variant, could facilitate entering structured data annotations such as
ClaimReview statements. If such annotations were made, then users of web
browsers might be able to see a warning flag saying "Contents of this page
are disputed" even if neither the complaint author nor the site itself
provided a means to contest complaints. What do you think?

bob wyman


On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 2:59 PM Tom Jones <thomasclinganjones@gmail.com>
wrote:

> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/technology/change-my-google-results.html
>
> Not sure why, but Google, et al. encourages this type of behavior. As long
> as lies work, lies will proliferate.  It seems like Google should be the
> one to pay the $2000 rip off.
>
> Be the change you want to see in the world ..tom
>