KinderStart loses Google case
p2pnet.net news:- California parenting site Kinderstart.com sued Google, claiming the fact it was downgraded in Google’s ranking system defamed it, kept it from expressing itself in a public forum, and violated KinderStart’s contract under Google’s AdSense program.
“KinderStart calls itself a competitor to Google in the specific area where it offers search results,” said PC Advisor. “As part of the suit, it wants Google to reveal how it comes up with its rankings.”
Although rankings are based partly on a mathematical algorithm, Google studies the quality of sites and makes subjective judgments, according to David Kramer, who’s representing Google, said the story.
Now, “A U.S. judge has thrown out a lawsuit challenging the fairness of how Web search leader Google Inc. calculates the popularity of Web sites in determining search results, court papers show,” says Reuters.
“In a ruling issued Friday that came to light Tuesday, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against Google by parenting information site KinderStart.
“The judge also imposed yet-to-be-determined sanctions on KinderStart legal counsel Gregory Yu for making unsupported allegations against Google.”
KinderStart had also tried for class action status, “on behalf of what is said were many other sites that suffered the same fate as Google fine-tunes Web site rankings in search results,” says the story.
Also See:
Kinderstart.com sued Google – Google page-ranking row, July 4, 2006
PC Advisor – Google attempts to get lawsuit dismissed, July 3, 2006
Reuters – U.S. judge throws out defamation suit against Google, May 20, 2007
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March 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 am
if they were, you bet the italian company Ferrero would have already sued them to give up “Kinder”*, like they intimidated others in europe that has something to do with “Kinder” in their name. (kinder.at for example)
Here specially because as an american company the name KinderStart doesn’t make much sense for an american based company. Childrensstart would make more sense.
Maybe this company should be thankful that google exposed them not so much to fly under Ferreros Radar!
* http://www.fontshop.de/newsfeed/C1133814189/E2093015325/index.html
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Alter_Fritz