That’s not an SEO campaign…
A couple of weeks ago an Australian senator launched a bit of a tirade at Google and its seemingly arrogant attitude.
At a meeting for a controversial national firewall Senator Stephen Conroy attacked Google because their Street Cars had been found to be collecting information regarding people’s wireless connections.
Conroy referred to this as “probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy“, though the practice was discontinued once it was discovered.
Conroy may have a chip on his shoulder when it comes to Google (or, maybe he’s just your typical Aussie speaking his mind) as he described Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, as “a bit creepy, frankly”.
“They consider themselves to be above government.”
“This has been worldwide. Google takes the view that they can do anything they want,” Senator Conroy said.
I’m not sure Google believes they are above governments but surely this is the kind of jibe you could fire at any big business, they know that they are vital to countries in some way, either through jobs or services or bringing in the big bucks, so they can throw their weight around.
Google and the Australian government have been on a collision course since Australia announced its desire to introduce a firewall that would filter the sites available to Australians. It’s believed by Google, Yahoo and experts that the filter would be a waste of time, as people would be able to circumvent it whilst it would probably slow down the internet and block benign material.
Conroy counters that ‘the filter would block access to sites that include child pornography, sexual violence and detailed instructions in crime or drug use.’
“The proposed filter is fundamentally flawed, will not achieve its stated purpose and simply will not work. It is fundamentally bad policy,” said Michael Malone, iiNet’s Chief Executive Officer.
The situation is made slightly more awkward by the fact that the Australian Government ‘is a major user of Google’s AdWords search-engine marketing product, spending $5 million to purchase sponsored links to promote its spending programs.’
As well as having organic SEO results for ‘Tax Help’ in the Australian Google it also has an AdWords campaign. This is fair enough and makes sense, as SEO is a way for anybody to advertise on the internet, and most governments try to help their people as much as possible by making information easy to access and find.
But how can the Australian government attack Google when in effect by using its services it’s supporting the actions?
I get the feeling as more businesses move online SEO and search engines will get bigger and stronger, have more influence over governments, and could end-up putting them in rather difficult/hypocritical positions.
