Jefe's House

BP Buys Google and Yahoo Search Words to Keep People Away From Real News on Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
by Maryann Tobin, reposted from examiner.com

“In their most tenacious effort to control the ‘spin’ on the worst oil spill disaster in the history, BP has purchased top internet search engine words so they can re-direct people away from real news on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

“BP spokesman Toby Odone confirmed to ABC News that the oil giant had in fact bought internet search terms. So now when someone searches the words ‘oil spill’,  on the internet, the top link will re-direct  them to BP’s official company website.”   CONT’D

[In fairness that examiner.com headline does seem a little alarmist to me.  It's indeed a lame and desperate move from BP but the BP link is clearly marked on Google as a Sponsored Link in a different colored field to offset it, the same as when I google "riding crop" or "cotton candy machine" and tons of sponsored links pop up before the real links.]

[Turns out the same thing happens on Yahoo, too.   The BP-sponsored links are clearly marked as Sponsored Results in a separate shaded area. In fact one of the main stories right now from the AP on Yahoo's front page is about how BP's been lying about the amount of oil leakage, so if BP's paying Yahoo to spin the news then it should demand a refund because Yahoo's not delivering the goods.  In fact, this whole Examiner piece turns out to be a silly load of crap, a non-story.  How embarrassing. I can't believe I took the bait. I guess examiner.com took a page from Fox News' playbook.

Sorry to have wasted your time, readers.]