Image via Complex Original
When you're a billion-dollar empire, it's only a matter of time before you become public enemy No. 1. Take Google, for example. Ever since the search leader emerged as a tech giant, it's been under heavy scrutiny for its revolutionary online products and technologies, serving as a scapegoat for a number of incidents that have transpired across the globe. It's gotten to the point where even former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that the company had become accustomed to taking the blame for everything. Terrorist attacks, market share drops, car accidents, and stolen property—you name it, Google's been accused of it. Today news broke that Google has reached a $7 million settlement with 38 U.S. states for allegedly harvesting emails, passwords, and web histories from people's Wi-Fi networks via its Street View cars. In a statement to the press Google said it was pleased to resolve the issue. If only it was always this lucky. Here’s a look at the 15 Most Ridiculous Things Blamed On Google.
Yahoo! Blames Google For Market Share Dip
15. Yahoo! Blames Google For Market Share Dip
Date:
Oct 14. 2010
Senior vice president of Yahoo! Search & Marketplaces, Sashi Seth, had no problem pointing fingers after comScore's report last September revealed Yahoo!'s market share value dropped, while Google's increased by 0.7 percent. The Yahoo! executive accused Google of giving the Internet research firm misleading figures and manipulating search counts with its automated suggestion technology: Google Instant. Seth argued that typing letters slowly into the search box produced irrelevant user results and registered each as a search under comScore’s query guidelines. OK. What about the 200 million less queries Yahoo! failed to generate that same month? Google's fault too?
Zuckerberg Pins Facebook Android App Issues on Google
14. Zuckerberg Pins Facebook Android App Issues on Google
Date: Nov. 3, 2010
Mark
Zuckerberg wasn't thrilled with the Facebook Android app and blamed
Google for the bugs and unpolished work. During the Facebook Mobile Event, Time’s
2010 Person of the Year called the company “obnoxious” for contracting an outside developer and working with it before updates had been completed on the smartphone app: “Obviously, it wasn’t a huge deal.
But it definitely set us back for a while...It was kind of frustrating.” The Facebook in-house team would end up developing the app and releasing it on the Android Market. Why they didn't just handle development of the app from the get-go is anyone's guess.
Mahalo Downsizing Staff
13. Mahalo Downsizing Staff
Date: March 2, 2011
Ten percent of Mahalo's staff was recently laid off and given the excuse that Google's new algorithm change forced the company to make cutbacks. Founder and CEO Jason Calacanis sent out a mass email to employees stating Google’s adjustments caused the "knowledge sharing service" to experience a "significant dip in traffic and revenue" the past few months. On the flip side, Calacanis indicated that Mahalo's biggest draw was still its online videos, which continue to perform strong on one of Google’s subsidiary sites, YouTube. How ironic.
Google Maps Error Leads to Nicaraguan Invasion
12. Google Maps Error Leads to Costa Rican Invasion
Date: Nov. 5, 2010
Nicaraguan military
commander Eden Pastora used Google Maps to lead his troops into what he thought
was Nicaraguan territory, where they took down Costa Rican flags and planted
their own. It never crossed their minds that they were actually on Costa Rican
soil. Pastora and government officials blamed Google Maps for the
accidental invasion, while Google blamed the U.S. State Department for
providing faulty boarder source data. Google fixed the map once it received the
correct statistics. The incident has since contributed to the hostile
tensions between the two, as both nations have argued over the land surrounding
the San Juan River dating back to the mid-19th century. Damn, no one uses paper maps anymore?
The 700MHz Spectrum Auction Shortfall
11. The 700MHz Spectrum Auction Shortfall
Date:
April 15, 2008
Three U.S. government officials accused Google of discouraging candidates
from placing bids and causing the FCC to lose out on an extra $10 billion during the 700MHz spectrum auction. Republican
Cliff Stearns voiced his opinion on the allegation: “I suspect that if
Google had been interested in more than just maneuvering within the
system. It could have prevailed in the C block and become a new [wireless]
entrant…what is more concerning is, that even though we knew what they were
doing, we let them maneuver this way anyway.” Granted Google did give the FCC a difficult time for demanding winner stipulations like offering wholesale access to competitors, you can't knock its hustle for trying to win. Business is business. Verizon won and Google argued the auction process was rigged for wireless companies to win. But karma came back in the form of Google's Android OS, which is now the leading mobile platform.
Children Viewing Adult Videos
10. Adult Video Kingpin Blames Google for Underage Viewers
Date: Feb. 15, 2008
Vivid Entertainment co-chairman, Steven Hirsch, demanded Google (and Yahoo!) “erect stronger barriers” to prevent children from accessing adult content online. "Vivid will work with any company that is ready to make it much more difficult for children to be exposed, even inadvertently, to material intended only for adults. This is not about First Amendment rights, it is about protecting children,” said Hirsh in a Vivid press release. He also blamed Google for not upgrading its filters and age-verification tools. That’s funny coming from a guy whose business has boomed in the digital age. Where's Larry Flint when you need him?
Google Crawler Blamed for UAL Stock Dive
9. Google
Crawler Condemned for UAL Stock Dive
Date: Sept. 9, 2008
Try to follow the chain of events: The Sun-Sentinel posted a
2002 article about United Air Lines' bankruptcy filing on its website, then a Florida
investment newsletter discovered the story after doing a Google search for
“bankruptcy 2008.” Once Bloomberg ran into the report, UAL’s stock price plummeted from $12.30 to $3. Sun-Sentinel owner, Tribune Co., blamed Google News for highlighting the story, but Google responded by saying its news crawler picked it up because it had been featured on the newspaper site's most viewed section and had a current date (Sept. 6, 2008) attached to it. Obviously no one bothered to look at the original published date of the six-year-old article. That's what you call bi-losing.
Newspaper Circulation Decline
8. Robert Murdoch Blames Google For Newspaper Decline
Date:
April 11, 2010
Someone had to play the bad guy during the newspaper circulation downturn and what better company than Google to point the finger at. News Corp. founder Rubert Murdoch addressed the tech giant during his speech at the Cable Show, claiming the search engine has profited from his media empire and other publishers content, offering no royalties in return: "The question is, should we be allowing Google to
steal all our copyright...not steal, but take." Google has been a firm believer of fair-use and retaliated by saying that its helped push web traffic to all News Corp. sites. Murdoch has since implemented a new pay system for readers to access content on his most popular publications like the Wall Street Journal. We're siding with Google on this one?
Milkman’s Bike Stolen By Google Street View Thieves
7. Milkman’s Bike Stolen By Google Street View Thieves
Date:
April 13, 2010
Gordon Rayner, a 54-year-old milkman from the United
Kingdom, claimed his mountain bike was stolen from his garage after thieves found his house thanks to Google's Street View technology. "When you look at the photograph, my face is blacked out, the
windows of my house are blacked out but because the garage door was left open,
you can clearly see everything in there…It is just an invitation for any
criminal to take what they like," Rayner told the Telegraph. News flash—leaving the garage door open in broad day light will draw many thieves to your home. Just saying.
Entertainment Industry Calls Google Enabler of Piracy
6. Entertainment Industry Calls Google Enabler of Piracy
Date: Dec. 9, 2010
Keynote speaker at the Entertainment Content Protection Summit, Taylor Hackford, called
the search engine an “enabler” of illegal downloading and accused it of
making money from BitTorrent sites: “They’re enablers. We’ve
got to be able to say: ‘You are facilitating illegal activity.’” One week
later, the British Phonographic Industry shared the same philosophies and labeled
Google the main source for online piracy. So what did the BPI suggest? Censoring
search results and ranking accredited music store links higher. Right, because making it easier to buy the music and movies you won't isn't an option.
Mumbai Terrorist Attacks
5. Mumbai Terrorist Attacks
Date: Dec. 9, 2009
After a captured terrorist admitted to using Google Earth as an aid during the Mumbai attacks, Indian officials sent a petition to the High Court looking to ban the virtual map system, claiming Google has “absolutely no control to prevent misuse or limit access” to users, according to The Times. Google Earth vice president John Haske defended the technology during an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald: “I don’t really think it’s tipping the balance in favour of the bad guys…The evilness is in the philosophies and the desires of those that want to do evil. They will use the tools at hand to do that, whether it’s throwing a Molotov cocktail, or shooting a rifle or using some piece of technology as part of the process.” Well said.
UK Pervert's Child Video Addiction
4. UK Pervert’s Child Video/Photograph Addiction
Date: May 21, 2008
Repeat sex offender William Dalgleish was arrested for possession of over 16,000 images of child p*rnography at his Lockerbie, Scotland home. Defense attorney Susan Burns stated her 67-year-old client felt Google was to blame for his addiction because it provided easy access to obscene content: “He feels that he would not have committed these offences [sic] if this information was not so freely available…He feels if companies like Google did not provide access to such sites, he would not have committed the offences [sic].” We're surprised this excuse hasn't been used on To Catch a Predator.
Republican Confuses Colorado Rockies With Canadian
3. Republican Blames Google for Confusing Hometown Landmark
Date: June 12, 2009
During
his campaign run for GOP gubernatorial nominee, Colorado Rep. Scott McInnis
showed loyalty to his homeland by placing an image of the Rockies on his web
page. Only problem was he posted an image of the Canadian Rockies instead.
ColoradoPols.com stumbled upon the discovery and spread the word, leaving many
Coloradans P.O.’d at their home state representative. McInnis's campaign blamed
the mishap on Google Images and ended up replacing the image with a photo of
the Flatirons. He would go on to lose the primary to businessman Dan Maes.
Unrest in Egypt
2. The Unrest in Egypt
Date: Feb. 22, 2011
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal,
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin blamed
Egypt's uprising and the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak entirely on
Google: "See, well, what senior managers of Google have been doing in
Egypt, what kind of manipulations of the energy of the people took place there.” Igor's subliminal jab was aimed at Google executive Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian
native who served as the nation's lead voice during the revolutionary protests. The company defended Ghonim's actions via Twitter, saying, "We're
incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back when
you're ready." That's a revolutionist for you.
Woman Blames Car Accident on Google Maps
1. Woman Blames Car Accident
on Google Maps
Date: March 1, 2010
Genius. Lauren
Rosenberg used Google Maps on her BlackBerry to access directions to Prospector
Avenue in Park City, Utah, and tried crossing a busy state highway with no
pavements at night, where she was then hit by a car. Rosenberg took Google to court claiming it provided an “unsafe route” and tried suing for $100,000 in damages. It should
be noted that Google Maps displays a warning sign for computer users saying certain routes might be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths, but BlackBerry's beta version didn’t at the time. But was she so dependent of her Crackberry
that she couldn’t look both ways before getting struck by a vehicle. Better yet, was she that dumb to not notice she was being led onto a highway? Answer to both: Yes.
