http://www.google-watch.org/ definitely thinks Google is evil ...

Yes, but Google Watch is basically one of the "Search Engine Optimisation" nutcases who got upset because Google didn't give his site as much prominence as it deserved.

http://www.google-watch-watch.org/

"Meet Daniel Brandt. He is a self-proclaimed public interest activist and the owner of Google-Watch.org Mr. Brandt founded Google-Watch.org after his own site, Namebase.org, did not get a good Google PageRank. Promoting his site or putting more work into it apparently never entered Mr. Brandt's mind, instead he decided that the fault wasn't with his site, but rather with Google. Thus he has started a campaign that badmouths the search engine and complains that its ranking algorithms are unfair. Unfair to whom? Well to Mr. Brandt's site that's who."

He fooled me!

I thought his "PIR" was the same PIR as the .ORG registry.

fool me once... fool me twice... :D

> "... badmouths the search engine and complains that its ranking algorithms are unfair ..."

Public Information Research, Inc. owned the domain PIR.ORG until the Public Interest Registry asked to purchase the domain 18 months ago. A contract was signed between PIR and PIR, and PIR.ORG was transferred.

Google still lists the Public Interest Registry as among the top hits for NameBase due to the fact that link rot on the Web has a lot of obsolete anchor text for NameBase still pointing to www.pir.org.

This is but one example of how Google is less than perfect, despite the slobbering and brown-nosing of google-watch-watch.org

"The fact is Google is neither biased towards big business nor towards activists. Google is completely objective and how they rank is entirely dependent on the views of the public." (from http://www.google-watch-watch.org)

This statement is not entirely true. As the author notes further up on that page, "the public" from which google devises its ranking is not "the public" but rather "those people who link" and can make their voice heard. That's almost always going to be easier if you have money (business), though a progression of tools (FrontPage, weblogs) has made it easier for anyone with an internet connection to have an impact. (I suppose, since google is internet only, that is a fair "public" from which to draw.)

That said, to comment on the original post, any company with intellectual property has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that property isn't used for any other purpose, and licensing agreements are a key part of that. Translation: lawyers can't be avoided, and this happens to every software company.

Revelation 13:15-18 http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=rev+13%3A15-18

"... the image of the first beast ... it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."

Obviously, this means that if you don't worship Google, or take Google's number (the 666k of the Google API), your PageRank plummets and you won't get any customers to your site (so you can't "buy or sell").

Yet another fine example of how to twist a bible passage.

As an aside, I sincerely hope it was the API that was 666k, and not the Terms and Conditions. 666k of terms and conditions could well be classified as evil. Charles, can you clarify?

Whats with this crazy site?

Whats with this crazy site?

Whats with this crazy site?