Gaming Google a Gateway To Crime?

netbuzz writes "Merely hiring a blackhat practitioner of search-engine optimization may be indicative of a willingness to 'cut corners' — the kind that land business executives behind bars — says Matt Cutts, Google's top cop regarding such matters. It's an interesting theory, as generalizations go, but there would seem to be quite a leap between risking the death penalty from Google and risking a stint in prison."

it's not even cutting corners

[yagu]

It's not even cutting corners, the Google guy is euphemistically describing "illegal" activity by Google's rules. And while SEO activities that break Google's rules aren't technically illegal other than sanctions brought by Google for getting caught I think Cutts makes an interesting and probably valid point.

Just because something isn't codified into law doesn't make it ethical or right. Law can and will never model completely human behavior, nor should it. But outside of the law there are behaviors that demonstrate or point to probability someone would also break codified law. SEO like any other discipline has approaches that work and are within ethical boundaries. But it also, like any other, has approaches that are not okay.

IMO it's about boundaries, and the ramifications when activity infringes on another's ability to freely engage in their own activity. Competition is one thing. Subverting a mechanism is quite another, especially when subversion comes at others' expense.

As for the quasi-argument from the summary:

there would seem to be quite a leap between risking the death penalty from Google and risking a stint in prison

The whole MO of people like this is they don't think they're risking a stint in prison. They completely rationalize their behaviors beyond any reasonable state of self-denial. Watch some of the videos of the Enron depositions... these guys (IMO) truly believe their actions were within the bounds of legal activity. (Actually some probably were, the shame of the whole Enron scam is a lot of goats took the fall for the more powerful, though it was nice to see at least a couple of high level execs finally taken out.)

Suprise

[ShieldW0lf]

People who are anti-social, who attempt to game the system for their own gain at our expense, are known to engage in other anti-social acts to bring about their own gain at others expense.

What a surprise.

How about, "People who don't think about what larger effect their actions will have are amoral, while people who recognize that their actions will have larger, detrimental effects on others and still engage in those actions are evil."

People behave according to their character.

Makes sense to me

[Per Abrahamsen]

Not as much as an indication of willingness to commit crime as general untrustworthiness.

If you are willing to pretend you are something you are not to the search engines (which is basically what black hat SEO consists of) in order to lure customers to your site, there is a good chance you are willing to do something similar to the customers in order to ensure a sale.

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[Blymie]

You certainly touched on it and I'll add my bit here, focusing entirely and only on that last sentence fragment.

The entire logic and reasoning behind that fragment is quite questionable. Frankly, I have to wonder about the character of the person that wrote it. To them, it would appear, the only reason people do not do wrong things, is because they are afraid of the ramifications of their actions. Put another way, the logic of that sentence fragment states that the only reason people do not slit your throat, steal your car, and rape your wife, is because they fear the backlash of their actions.

A person that employs such logic would therefore clearly steal from you, if they knew there would be absolutely no backlash. That is, if they were positive there was no way to be caught, and quite confident of it. This is called "an asshole". A person without any moral fiber.

A person with true moral fiber does not act based upon the laws, but acts based upon his code of ethics at all times. For example, it is clear that beating the living tar out of someone that just viciously beat and stole a purse from an old woman, is a very moral act. It is also quite illegal, unless that person is physically threatening you at the time. One is moral, one is legal.

Also, I am sure that a good number of people on slashdot feel it is quite valid to kick the living tar out of someone that has acted in an extremely inappropriate fashion. Of course, this is also illegal. Morals and legality are often the same, but equating laws to morals is not valid, ever.

So, I take a strong stand against someone discussing going to jail, as if someone looks at the possible jail sentence they might receive, decides if the act is worth that price, and the commits the crime. This is what that sentence fragment states. A better sentence fragment would be:

"there would seem to be quite a leap between risking blacklisting from Google, and killing someone in cold blood"

 

Sounds a lot like Microsoft noises ...

[Syncerus]

It's funny how Google sounds more and more like Microsoft as time goes by ...

Maybe it's breaking the rules

[jessiej]

I think it makes some sense, try thinking of it as "breaking rules". Google has a set of rules about proper search engine optimization. Some of these rules might not be well documented but people generally know when they're trying to get around them or cheat them.

Any success in breaking Google's rules could result in increased profits from a higher pagerank giving the rule breaker a sense that it pays to cheat. So why not cheat somewhere else with another set of breakable rules? Taxes? Mortgages?

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[kevin_conaway]

A person with true moral fiber does not act based upon the laws, but acts based upon his code of ethics at all times. For example, it is clear that beating the living tar out of someone that just viciously beat and stole a purse from an old woman, is a very moral act

Thats actually not clear at all.

This reminds me of a commercial I saw...

[RandoX]

You wouldn't steal a car...

Would that our society admired ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

We're currently in a swing of the social pendulum in which people worship money and power, and actually admire clever bullying, clever cheating, and clever lying, provided it is successful.

Ethical behavior is seen as weak or naive... or worse. Failure to extract the maximum possible advantage of any situation is seen as a failure of rational economic behavior, and therefore a betrayal of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.

The pendulum will swing back, it alway does, but it may take a couple of stock market crashes to do it. One Enron wasn't enough.

Cutts makes no sense

[Venik]

Matt Marlon of Traffic Power was arrested for running a mortgage scam, not for breaking Google rules for SEO. Cutts is just using this to push his agenda. God help us all if some other SEO boss gets arrested for shoplifting or grand theft auto.

Google

[jorghis]

Oh come on now, how much of a fanboy do you have to be to think that modifying your own web pages in a way you see fit is equivalent to committing a crime because Google doesnt like it? Google has no right to tell people what they can and cant do on the internet, they are not the law. Doing something they dont like is not equivalent to breaking the law. If their algorithm doesnt handle other people's websites doing certain things very well they should fix their algorithm, not demand that everyone play by their rules and design their websites in a way which doesnt mess up their algorithm.

I know that a lot of the things they push may be in the best interests of the tech industry but at the same time it doesnt seem right that they have anointed themselves as the police and lawmakers of the internet. (how many lobbyists do they have again trying to get laws written which are friendly to them?)

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[Tim C]

That's exactly what I was going to say - that's not clearly moral at all, that's simply revenge. It's the attractiveness of that sort of response that is part of the reason why we have laws, to stop people simply dishing out whatever punishment seems fit at the time.

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[argiedot]

In fact, on Kohlberg's Moral Ladder [wikipedia.org], that would be the way a small child would think. A simple attempt to minimise punishment and maximise reward which does not involve any thought of right or wrong outside the thought of the consequences to the person doing the act. Level I - Preconventional, that is.

It's funny - laugh.

[DerekLyons]

The amusing part is that if Microsoft or Sony said 'breaking our rules indicates a tendency towards criminal behavior'... The replies would be filled with flames and laughter.
 
But it's Google, so they get a pass and people take them almost seriously.

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[J0nne]

For example, it is clear that beating the living tar out of someone that just viciously beat and stole a purse from an old woman, is a very moral act.

I have my doubts on this one...

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[billcopc]

How is revenge any worse than the arbitrary punishment decided in a courtroom or municipal office ? The same wackos, who would beat the "living tar" out of someone over petty theft, are also in offices writing the policies. Just because someone works for the city doesn't magically make them less prone to emotion and irrational behavior.

Correlation != Causation

[hellfire]

The "gateway crime" theory is way overused. It's true dishonest people do dishonest things. The question is, did gaming the search engine come first, did cooking the books come first, or are the people involved simply dishonest to begin with and it doesn't matter which one they did first, they'll just do anything to make a buck. I'm betting the last one rings true in this and most other situations.

The same holds true for marijuana as a gateway drug. People think that taking marijuana almost always leads to harder drugs. That's simply not true. The fact that someone jumps from mary jane to cocaine does happen, but it has nothing to do with the drug, but the person using it. Just like people continue to think "prostitution" is a gateway crime and therefore want laws strictly enforced. If government would simply make it legal and regulate it, crimes tied to prostitution would be drastically reduced, but that would require going against the moral majority and thinking outside the box.

If you are willing to do one dishonest and illegal thing (and do it with no remorse), you are likely to do others (i.e. correlation). It all has to do with the morals of the person committing the act. The article doesn't say much but it makes sense in all other areas. But stop calling it "Gateway crime," I'm sick of that label because it implies causation and leads to stupid crime prevention policies.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not fanboyism or saying gaming Google is equivalent to committing a crime. He's stating (and I think he's right) that a person that does something greasy like set up a web page specifically so searches for "funny comics" goes to their "Vi4gr4" page is more likely to do other greasy stuff, some of which may in fact be illegal. And, in fact, I think this is true. Conversely, someone who says "I wouldn't do that, it's dishonest" is less likely to push the legal envelope in other ways.

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[mcpkaaos]

How is revenge any worse than the arbitrary punishment decided in a courtroom or municipal office ?

It isn't about revenge. The hope is that the system will try to rehabilitate. Revenge only teaches a criminal to be more careful and/or armed.

Kind of a stretch for me

[Roman Geyzer]

Although I don't disagree at a high-level with Matt, this is also a bit of a stretch. The way I see it, Google's algorithm is far from perfect. All too often, I search for something and get results back from web sites that don't deserve to be at the top of the list but are not necessarily doing any kind of black-hat SEO. For whatever reason, Google incorrectly bestows traffic (and therefore revenue) to these sites that appear at the top. So would you blame someone who has a better web site from "pushing the envelope a bit"? To say that this behavior automatically constitutes some degree of moral decrepitude is a bit of a stretch. There are behaviors that are clearly wrong and I wholeheartedly disagree with them. But to expect perfection from the masses when Google's search results themselves are not perfect is a bit hypocritical in my view. Another way of putting it: It's easy for Google to sit back and say you do this and that to web site owners while Google's making Billions and so many sites are barely able to survive despite good quality content and top-notch intentions. Worse still is that Google has a "diversity problem" in my opinion. Top 10 search results will be from only 4 or 5 sites instead of from 10 different sites so you have more options to choose from. But what do I know.

Re:it's not even cutting corners

[BakaHoushi]

This is why I hate the stock market with a passion.
It's no longer about making money. Making money is the point of business and hey, that's just fine.
But no, it's now about making MORE money.
You can't be happy that you spent a million dollars and made a billion. Because you made 2 billion last year, so you should have made at least THREE billion.
The stock market and its investors tend to, I've noticed, ignore the concept of averages. Sometimes, a store will do better than average. Sometimes, it will do worse. That's kinda the definition of average. But we want our stock prices to go up indefinitely. You can only raise stock prices by legal means so high. After that, well, that's when the less savory aspects of business kicks in, just to make sure we look "better" this quarter than we did last year. Nevermind the moral, legal, and long term financial ramifications.