Google kills 'eco' search engine
Planting trees breaks the rules
A GREEN SEARCH engine outfit Down Under has attracted the wrath of the 'don't do evil' company Google.
Ecocho.com.au promises to plant two trees for every 1,000 searches that are made on the site and users can search through either Yahoo or Google. Google and Yahoo adverts appear next to search results.
While this might be all well and good, The Sydney Morning Herald points out that all is not great in Ecocho land. The brains behind the outfit is Tim Macdonald who also founded a company called Found Agency. This outfit has been attacked by Google for tinkering with its rankings.
Now, Google wants to see Macdonald's new search engine off because it is breaking its Adsense rules.
It is written in the book of Google that publishers running its advertising shalt not "compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behaviour".
Apparently promising to plant trees breaks those rules and Google has stopped serving adverts to the eco search engine. µ
L'Inq
Sydney
Morning Herald
Comments
who need google?
im not using google to get access tohttp://ecocho.com.au/ im using http://www.exalead.com/search .try it and see for yourself
Why, oh why?
Is this the Daily Mail website?Why are so many Inq stories (like this one) written in such a heavy-handed, desperate-to-prove-a-point, way?
Clearly Google can do whatever they want with their search engine, yet the article clearly implies/pretends that they are in some non-specific way being bad.
Perhaps the screaming indignation is purely for comedic effect. Let's hope that everyone gets the joke.
Rico
Rico doesn't get it!!
First a personal attack against Ing for writing an article which they feel passionate about, then you miss the point of the article altogether. Maybe Google just needs to change their thoughts a little. If this article was about Google and a company that feeds the starving everytime their is a click then there would be an uproar. The reality is that caring for the environment will be Mans life and death decision. Though you might not be able to see that possibility, it is quite clear where this petri dish is heading too. Google has missed the mark on this one, that is all Ing is saying.Tony
Or just use their direct link/URL
That's a good point, but it made me realise the article wording is actually really implying that Google controls any other search engine, merely by choosing to endorse it or not.