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WhenU Booted From Google
'Cloaking' technique bites marketing company
WhenU, the company that recently sued the state of Utah for taking a stand against spyware, was booted from being listed in both Google and Yahoo search rankings. The search engines booted the company on Thursday after it was discovered WhenU was using a method dubbed "cloaking", which fools search engines into favorably listing decoy Web pages that redirect users back to the company. The trick was discovered by Harvard student Ben Edelmen. According to WhenU Chief Executive Avi Naider, the trick was used by a third party company they hired to boost search engine rankings, and the tactic was stopped as soon as they were notified. The company was relisted once they discontinued the practice.
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B04
Premium Member
join:2000-10-28

B04

Premium Member

Didn't Last Long?


As of right now "whenu" returns about 34,700 hits on Google. FWIW.

-- B

Jeremy341
Bye
Premium Member
join:2000-01-06
localhost

Jeremy341

Premium Member

Re: Didn't Last Long?

RTFA. They didn't remove all references to the company, just links to the company's site.
B04
Premium Member
join:2000-10-28

B04

Premium Member

Re: Didn't Last Long?


Don't curse at me. Crawl away.

-- B

Jeremy341
Bye
Premium Member
join:2000-01-06
localhost

Jeremy341

Premium Member

Re: Didn't Last Long?

Don't try and cover up the fact that you didn't RTFA. Crawl away.

z28kindaguy
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18
Brooklyn, MD

z28kindaguy

Premium Member

Re: Didn't Last Long?

said by Jeremy341:
Don't try and cover up the fact that you didn't RTFA. Crawl away.

Reading this and your other posts makes me realize you're not too smart. Does it make you feel better when you tell someone to RTFA? Too scared to type out the curse?

Anyways, I'm glad Google and Yahoo are taking a stand against this.

Jeremy341
Bye
Premium Member
join:2000-01-06
localhost

Jeremy341

Premium Member

Re: Didn't Last Long?

said by z28kindaguy:
Reading this and your other posts makes me realize you're not too smart.
Thanks for your opinion. I'll be sure to put it exactly where it belongs...


Vamp
5c077
Premium Member
join:2003-01-28
MD

Vamp to Jeremy341

Premium Member

to Jeremy341
I agree, he should of read the fkin article, and also should know that google is not going to remove all text with the word "whenU"

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Highly recommended

Read the article => »www.benedelman.org/spywa ··· nu-spam/

It's not the technical rocket-science stuff that some of us like, but it does a good job of explaining what's going on.

I respect Google for sticking up for its policies. Sometimes the results on Google are bad enough without morons trying to mess with the accuracy of the results. I can't imagine what it would be like without any sort of checks.

dadkins
Can you do Blu?
MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA

dadkins

MVM

Scumware=scumware, period.

Subject. ^^^^^

ghostpainter
I Write for the Apocalypse
MVM
join:2002-05-25
Rancho Cucamonga, CA

ghostpainter

MVM

Re: Scumware=scumware, period.

said by dadkins:
Subject. ^^^^^

What another Gator-Gain wanna be!!!
Or could it be The Gator gang in Redux???

dadkins
Can you do Blu?
MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA

dadkins

MVM

Re: Scumware=scumware, period.

Gator, WhenU, CoolWeb, Whatever...it should ALL be banned/eradicated.

rstrandb
Howl at the moon
Premium Member
join:2003-04-17
Albany, GA

rstrandb

Premium Member

Horray for google

Glad to see it, remove all references to spyware companies off your search engines.

Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium Member
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX

Doctor Four

Premium Member

Re: Horray for google

I think that ought to apply to bogus spyware removal
tools like Stop-Sign (it is itself spyware) and Spy
Hunter (questionable spyware remover at the very least -
they make you pay to remove the spyware it finds), whose
ads still show up when you Google for Spybot. Or have
they in fact removed them?
djblack
join:2002-08-19
Troutdale, OR

djblack

Member

Re: Horray for google

said by Doctor Four:
I think that ought to apply to bogus spyware removal
tools like Stop-Sign (it is itself spyware) and Spy
Hunter (questionable spyware remover at the very least -
they make you pay to remove the spyware it finds), whose
ads still show up when you Google for Spybot. Or have
they in fact removed them?

Geez, no kidding.

It's kinda like a guy who sneaks out to your house, and drills a hole in your roof. Strangly enough, the next day, a roofing salesman shows up at your doorstep.

Hmmm... ??

Varangian
join:2002-12-08
Collinsville, IL

Varangian

Member

counter attack needed

If we're forver on the defensive the spyware suits will win eventually.
A grisly example needs to be made of one of them. Maybe the othes will back off.
Old time divers will tell you that the thing to do against sharks is kill one where the others can see you do it. Then they know you're not safe to eat.

birdfeedr
MVM
join:2001-08-11
Warwick, RI

birdfeedr

MVM

Re: counter attack needed

said by Varangian:
Old time divers will tell you that the thing to do against sharks is kill one where the others can see you do it. Then they know you're not safe to eat.

Since sharks have very limited vision, and a highly refined sense of taste, you'd have to be swimming in the middle of them so they could "see" you kill one. The sharks that saw you kill one might take off (I doubt it), but the sharks farther away would taste blood in the water and come zooming in for a feeding frenzy on the dead shark.

I think how it's supposed to work is to leave bloody food taste in the water, and get the hell out of there. I doubt sharks have a sense of brethren. They're just eating machines.
60632649 (banned)
join:2003-09-29
New York, NY

60632649 (banned)

Member

Pathetic that they were relisted so quick

The title covers it... but someone in their corporate management had to know what was going on... right??

So delist them for a nice long time as an example of what not to do.

Ben Edelman
@attbi.com

Ben Edelman

Anon

Not true that 'Company was Relisted'

The last sentence of the story above says "The company was relisted once they discontinued the practice." This is false: To date, WhenU hasn't been relisted in either Google or Yahoo.

WhenU's CEO was quoted as saying he anticipates being relisted soon, but Google's policy explicitly mentions the possibility of a permanent exclusion.

Meanwhile, there's evidence suggesting that WhenU's cloaking activities lasted for the better part of two years, going back as far as July 2002. (See the report for details.) If this is true, or if the search engines think it is true, I would expect them to be especially unlikely to re-add WhenU quickly. Setting the right incentives here -- not to cloak -- requires that the punishment for cloaking be larger (for the companies considering cloaking) than the benefit. If the choice were two years of cloaking followed by a couple days of exclusion, lots of companies might rationally decide cloaking is a fine approach, the rules notwithstanding!

Ben Edelman
»www.benedelman.org
Ben Edelman

Ben Edelman

Anon

Which SEO WhenU Used

A few people have asked me which SEO WhenU used. I've taken a look, and all signs point to Synergy6. See my new addition to the site:

Which SEO Did WhenU Use? The Best Inference: Synergy6
»www.benedelman.org/spywa ··· seo.html

Ben Edelman
»www.benedelman.org
Ben Edelman

Ben Edelman

Anon

WhenU Relisted in Yahoo

WhenU has been relisted in Yahoo. See »search.yahoo.com/search?p=whenu . My research indicates that WhenU's hidden links began in August 2002 or earlier (see »www.benedelman.org/spywa ··· duration ). So WhenU got on the order of twenty months of these practices, compared with only two weeks of exclusion from Yahoo. If that's the tradeoff, cloaking looks like a pretty good deal! Note, however, that www.whenu.com remains excluded from Google.

Also, note new research showing how WhenU violates its own privacy policy: »www.benedelman.org/spywa ··· -privacy .

Ben Edelman
»www.benedelman.org