oh, and Google is colluding with Disney
If I was furious and bemused about Disney thinking it could cow me into meek compliance by refusing to allow me early access to Up, then I’m simply flabbergasted by what I discovered in the course of preparing the previous post:
Google doesn’t want you to know that Disney didn’t want me to see Race to Witch Mountain, which is at the root of my current Up blacklisting.
I used the Search function here at FlickFilosopher.com -- which is powered by Google -- to find the URL for my “Disney doesn't want me to see ‘Race to Witch Mountain’” post, so I could link to it in that previous post. I got no returns. And I thought: Well, that’s weird. So I went to Google’s homepage and searched on the URL for that post (which I’d subsequently found through other means).
That URL, for your reference:
http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/03/030809disney_does_not_want_me_to_see.html
Search on that URL via Google, and you get bupkis. Search on the title of that post, “disney doesn't want me to see race to witch mountain”, and you get bupkis.
That post is the first result on Yahoo when you search on “disney doesn't want me to see race to witch mountain”, and it’s the third result on Dogpile on the same search.
But on Google? Nothing. It doesn’t exist.
The only explanation for that is that Disney asked Google to remove my post from its results, and Google complied.
Is Google a search engine that covers the whole Web, or a search engine that only covers the Web that its corporate overlords want it to cover?
Well, look at fuckin’ this:
Google to Provide Web Search and Targeted Sponsored Links to Walt Disney Internet Group Web Properties - Disney.com, FamilyFun.com, Go.com and Movies.comNORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - March 10, 2003 - Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG), and Google, developer of the largest performance-based search advertising program, today announced an agreement through which Google will provide several Disney web properties with Google's search technology and highly relevant sponsored links. Google's web-wide search results and sponsored links are available now to Go.com visitors. Additionally, Google will power site-specific searches and provide sponsored links on Disney.com, Movies.com and FamilyFun.com beginning in the Spring.
"Google's web search and sponsored links programs enable us to offer our visitors highly useful, comprehensive and relevant information, improving their overall experience on our sites," said Larry Shapiro, executive vice president of Operations and Business Development for WDIG. "From a business perspective, Google's sponsored links program creates a significant revenue opportunity for us."
If you’re looking for anything critical of Disney, don’t use Google.
Looks like I'll be looking for someone else to power the Search function here at FlickFilosopher.com.
)
)
comments
posted by PaulW (Wed May 27 09, 2:45PM)
Jebus. You need a lawyer... oh wait you can't. This is Disney we're talking about here. They go after day schools for God's sake.
Still, this has to be a serious infringement on your First Amendment rights.
posted by misterb (Wed May 27 09, 2:50PM)
Hmmm, Google guards PageRanks secrets very closely, perhaps this is why. On the other hand, if I google "I hate disney" I get many pagefuls of results. Is it possible that you are so powerful that Google is targeting you specifically?
posted by Gordon (Wed May 27 09, 2:54PM)
When I searched "Disney does not want me to see" (without the quotes), your Race to Witch Mountain post was the first hit. I don't think Google would be complicit in any sort of conspiracy.
Disney, on the other hand ...
(N.B. After the ellipsis are only nice things about Disney. I would never say anything bad about Disney on the web. Please don't hurt me, Disney.)
posted by Ryan (Wed May 27 09, 3:07PM)
Yeah, I don't get it either. I just googled it and your original post came up first.
posted by Monica (Wed May 27 09, 3:23PM)
I never post but, since I'm fascinated by search results, I had to check this out. When I Googled "disney doesn't want me to see race to witch mountain" I only got the link to this entry. BUT, when it's "disney does not want me to see race to witch mountain", the original comes up.
Perhaps Google and Disney are waging a war on contractions.
posted by MaryAnn (Wed May 27 09, 3:41PM)
Ha. No.
posted by PJK (Wed May 27 09, 7:02PM)
I've also tried it and both google.nl and google.com point me straight back at your site in the first result show, when I use the "Disney doesn't want me to see Race to Witch Mountain" query.
I get the link to this article if I use the query string without quotes. When I use the "does not" variant without quotes I find a lot of non-Flickfilosopher links, but if a embed the query string in quotes, the first link shown is your race to witch mountain article.
I think this isn't malicious behaviour on the part of Google, but just caused by how the query string is interpreted when not using quotes.
posted by JoshB (Wed May 27 09, 9:57PM)
No, it isn't. Neither Disney nor Google is the U.S. Government. They are allowed to be assholes about people's speech.
posted by PaulW (Wed May 27 09, 10:55PM)
Google seems to be picking up this thread now. I guess Mickey has stumbled off to Valhalla to rest and feed.
posted by MaryAnn (Wed May 27 09, 11:08PM)
We'll see how long this URL endures in Google. The *Witch Mountain* post showed up in Google at first, too.
No, it points you to the FlickFilosopher.com main page. Plug any other post-specific URL from this site into Google, and it sends you right to that page.
posted by Ken (Wed May 27 09, 11:52PM)
Carlin said it best:
"Fuck Mickey Mouse! Fuck him in the ass with a big rubber dick! Then break it off and beat him with it! I hope Mickey dies. I do, I hope he goddamn dies. I hope he gets a hold of some tainted cheese, and dies lonely and forgotten in the bathroom of some bad building in a poor neighborhood, with his hand in Goofy's pants."
posted by bzero (Thu May 28 09, 2:17AM)
Wow. Another example of Google stepping on their own "Don't be a dick" policy. B/
posted by PJK (Thu May 28 09, 3:36AM)
I've tried it again just now and both FF links from the queries (the ones using quotes) bring me to the specific article, not the main FF site.
And that is using google.com, I haven't tried google.nl
Are you sure this is not just something that happens on your side?
posted by MaryAnn (Thu May 28 09, 9:20AM)
PJK, am I right in assuming that you're in the Netherlands (since you mentioned google.nl)? Maybe the results that come up depend upon IP address. Cuz I'm still getting the same nonresults I got yesterday.
posted by Jan Willem (Thu May 28 09, 10:58AM)
I get the impression that you are all getting carried away a little. Monica above talks common sense, though. I too believe The Contraction is in charge of the Evil Empire. And if you search for an exact phrase and misspell it ever so slightly, of course you're not going to find it!
I read the other day that conspiracy theories are the new UFOs.
posted by Ken (Thu May 28 09, 11:44AM)
I randomly picked a few specific URLs from your site and plugged them into both Google and Yahoo. Yahoo returned results for both, Google only found one (your Valkyrie review), but missed this one:
http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2008/11/more_site_strangeness.html
I picked a few more, and Google seems to have no trouble with the links that are reviews, but it doesn't like many of the other links. It failed to find one of the trailer breaks, and a few other blog entries. Yahoo finds all of them.
So I'm guessing that Google isn't being malicious. It's just a shitty search engine.
posted by PJK (Thu May 28 09, 12:39PM)
Yes, MaryAnn I'm indeed in The Netherlands (and thank you for not calling my country Holland, which is like calling the USA Texas >B') ).
I guess someone with a USA based IP-address could repeat my test and see what the results are.
posted by Victor Plenty (Thu May 28 09, 1:51PM)
I'm located in the USA. When I click on the preformed links to the Google queries in the article text above, I get the nonresults as described in the article.
But, when I go to Google myself, and paste the post titles into the search field, a link directly to the appropriate article is the first result each time. If someone at Google is actually trying to hide these articles, they are doing a very poor job of it.
Searching by URL is hit and miss, as some of the other comments have reported.
Weird behavior like this is more often caused by some arcane technical glitch than by any conscious effort to block particular material, in my experience.