Google's Bad PR Day : Internet Search Engine News Jim Hedger reports: "Google has had another bad day on the public relations front yesterday. Three stories about Google made search marketing headlines which, for a company as interesting and innovative as Google is fairly typical...
The first and possibly most damaging item comes in the form of a directive issued to Google employees banning them from speaking with representatives of one of the Internet’s most popular news services, C-Net news.
Another headline yesterday noted that Google has issued an update for its popular toolbar. In this update, the controversial AutoLink feature of the toolbar is automatically enabled. AutoLink was included in the third version of the toolbar. When active, AutoLink adds links to a document if content in that document triggers it. Currently limited to proving links to FedEx (package tracking numbers), Amazon.Com (triggered when a book title or ISBN is mentioned), Google Maps (when street addresses are placed on a document), and vehicle histories (when a vehicle ID number is entered), AutoLink actively alters web documents, regardless of who created them. While the feature is said to assist Google users, the bottom line is that it will force content change on documents created, for the most part, by private webmasters.
A third headline yesterday led to an article about the troubles Google’s former National Sales Director, Christina Elwell faced when she told her former employer she was pregnant with quadruplets and coping with medical issues arising from the pregnancy. Just a few months earlier, Ms. Elwell was singled out for praise at a national sales meeting as a strong contributor, one of the people who made last year’s IPO successful. After telling her supervisor she was pregnant, Ms. Elwell was informed her position was terminated and offered a lesser role (which was eventually filled by someone else). "
Jim Hedger concludes: "It is however highly unlikely Google will emerge from this year with their “do-no-evil” reputation intact."
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