Google Hijacked by Major Canadian ISP Rogers-Yahoo!
Category: Getting Traffic, Google
This news came out in December 2007 but I think it is still worthy of a mention and it brings up some very interesting issues. A major Canadian ISP modified the Google.ca homepage to bring member relavent information to their internet users.
In doing this, they in essense are destroying Google’s “Clean” look and feel which is something Google takes very seriously and one of the reasons for their success in the first place. Furthermore, they are using Google’s hard earned traffic and market share to promote their “Rogers-Yahoo! branded customer service” …. What? Yahoo! (!) Wow, this alone I think would peeve Google of above anything I would think.
(Click image to enlarge)
The original report came out on Lauren Weinstein blog (submitted to him by one of his Canadian readers I believe) and you can also read the full story there. Lauren even have the java script code that makes this possible available for download.
The story was confirmed a few days later on Wired.com where you can also find some interview snippets with the VP of communications of the ISP. Quote (with modification):”The message is intended to inform Rogers ISP customers they are getting close to their monthly bandwidth limit, and is intended to provide them with a link to information about upgrading their ISP account, among other things.“
Matt Cutts (head Google engineer) also gave his thoughts about this on his blog recently and
<quote>
“it may be your only chance to see the word “Yahoo!” on Google’s home page in three different places. 
……. I think we agree that this is pretty uncool.
<unquote>
That’s right! The Word “Yahoo!” actually appears 3 times on the Google homepage….I think this has to breach some sort of Internet law!?
But to me, it is interesting how easy it is to capture someone else’s traffic … I doubt that Google will stand for this type of defacement for very long though. What Google could of course do is to block the entire ISP so that their users no longer have access to Google search engine….that could be interesting. Who has the bargaining power? The ISP with their 100,000’s of ‘Google’ users or Google with their quality search service.
Image: Lauren Weinstein’s blog.
Sources:
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000337.html
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/12/canadian-isps-p.html
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/confirmed-isp-modifies-google-home-page/
