RSSCNET: We're 'Sorry,' Google
By Ed Oswald | Published August 11, 2005, 12:17 PM
British CNET subsidiary ZDNet UK issued what appeared to be a sarcastic apology to Google this week, calling into question the search giant's decision not to talk with CNET reporters until July 2006. The open letter was not signed by anyone, only "Leader" whose e-mail directed to the site's general mailbox.
"Acting under the mistaken impression that Google's search engine was intended to help research public data, we have in the past enthusiastically abused the system to conduct exactly the kind of journalism that Google finds so objectionable," the site says in its letter.
The boycott of CNET by Google began over a story written by reporter Elinor Mills on July 14. In the story Mills showed how easy it was to "Google" the company's CEO, finding that Eric Schmidt was worth $1.5 billion last year, lived with his wife Wendy in Atherton, California, complete with street address, and that the then Novell exec attended a fundraiser for Al Gore in 2000 starring Elton John.
The story was not without error. The original article implied that Google Desktop Search transmitted to Google data from a users PC. "The service does not expose a user's content to Google or anyone else without the user's explicit permission," CNET wrote in a retraction.
Citing the privacy of its CEO, Google told News.com that it would not speak to its reporters for one full year. The site is taking no blame for the story. "This is all publicly available information," News.com editor in chief Jai Singh recently said.
"Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern. We apologize unreservedly, and will cooperate fully in helping Google change people's perceptions of its role just as soon as it feels capable of communicating to us how it wishes that role to be seen," the site chided.
Google has not commented on the matter.
Google should be better than this - CNet/ZDNet may well be rubbish, granted - but this is Google we're talking about.
Not only is their reaction incredibly petty, but it also draws 1000000x more attention to the very facts they didn't want to be published in the first place. Time for Google to leave egos at the door and have a think about PR.
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|i have more respect on google then i do cnet by far. if i boycot anyone it would be cnet. cnet just full of junk anymore. rateing programs on how much they donated to the site or where the adds are placed. cnet should join yahoo and both burn in heck..
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|Dont fight Google and Cnet! You can both marry me.
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|Of course Google would work on somebody with a high profile and alot of money. Google people that are real, people that goto work everyday, etc. You will not find much on somebody unless somebody else writes it.
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|Google shouldn't talk to CNET for other reasons, not the least of which it's like every other ZD-sponsorsed site, it's filled with mountains of adware.
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|That's quite a Blog you got going there... mega Boobs...! Perhaps not the best site to link to from here?
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|I want to say something on this.... but I know I'd get the ball rolling so I won't. But there are much better sites out there than CNet for information and that's for sure... and I'll leave it at that.
:o) Smile... than grin and bare it.
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|Hold on! hold on!
Aren't you all missing the point?
If Google don't want people's personal details published then they shouldn't link to them.
Anyone can find out personal details about this CEO or about other people whether they like it or not. Why should the CEO of Google be any different?
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|Exactly! It was public knowledge. What is the real reason here that these two are upset?
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|Yet again, another waste of time. This only demonstrates the type of morons running these big companies.
I'm not talking to you and if you say another word, I'll send my dad round cause he's bigger than your dad!!
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|That's hillarious. I read the whole letter.
I don't know who's to blame, and I don't care. I still use both companies' sites. They're both good companies despite this very small disagreement IMO.
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|This whole situation began with a not-so-superb news site's reporter making a not-so-superb decision. If I were in the place, I wouldn't have let such things appear. It doesn't really make them look professional (well, I never really thoght about them as such, but that's not the point), and the way they "defend" their being right doesn't really help them. One suggestion that maybe should be followed by all "professional" reporters on the planet: when there's no news, take a day off, don't make the news, report it.
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|Who the heck CARES about this? So Google isn't talking to a specific news company... What is the problem here? Get your Google news from somewhere else.
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|Kids and their blogs... ZDNet UK really solidified their professionalism here.
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|Such BS.
No need to apologize.
I have stopped using Google all together because of how Google acted regarding this particular situation.
If Google cannot take some of their own medicine then they shouldn't hand it out to other people.
Freaking Losers.....
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|google may have over-reacted, but C|Net dropped the ethics ball on that one. Yes, publicly available information, but not something an ethical reporter should be diseminating to the public at large. She could have easily made her point without handing out the personal information to the mass public.
Bad judgement.
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|Wow, Google is going to miss yo...oh wait, no they won't.
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|Clearly, there's no place in modern reporting, for decent reporting practices, or the abilities of a company to make sound judgement calls based on said publicly available information.
I seriously think C|Net / ZDNET need to get a clue. Just because the information is out there does not mean it should be made news. There's plenty of stuff out there, publicly available, concerning myself that I'd rather not see on the 6PM news.
These guys simply made a bad judgement call and are now trying to shoft the blame. Typical.
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