Search Engines a Hazard, Says Nader
hmmmm.... I use google myself.
Self-styled consumer advocate Ralph Nader says that eight search
engines violate truth-in-advertising rules by including paid
placements among top-listed results.
"Search engines have become crucial in the Internet Age," said Gary
Ruskin, executive director of Nader's group Commercial Alert. "If
these are being hijacked and skewed by corporate advertisers for their
benefit, that can lead to dramatic degradation of the information
citizens really get."
Nader has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission,
BusinessWeek magazine reports. His hit list: AltaVista, Direct Hit,
HotBot, iWon, LookSmart, Lycos, Netscape and MSN.
But the companies note that the ads - not users, and not Ralph Nader
and his ilk - pay the bills for these services.
"It's fair to say that while some of these labels are relatively new
and lack industrywide nomenclature, users accept these various types
of results as long as they find the intended information," AltaVista's
David Emmanuel told BusinessWeek.
newsmax.com
tom watson tosiwmee |
