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Matt Cutts doesn't only fight spam and assist the webmaster community, he is also fighting to keep government regulation out of Google's search results.
Mr. Cutts Goes To Washington, Testifies Google Has Integrity by Danny Sullivan recaps Matt's latest adventure at D.C.
Matt presented an 89 page slide presentation called "Search Integrity" in front of US Federal Trade Commission members and congressional staff members. One quote included:
"The only reasons I know of to go in and change [search rankings] manually is for security, a court order or spam," Cutts said. "It is impossible to pay for a better ranking."
I suspect Matt did a great job but I would have love to see this presentation and the reaction of the government officials when he was presenting.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Comments:
man
01/18/2011 02:13 pm
wouldn't this all be on CSpan? At any rate it sounds like the presentation was a red herring. The issue for antitrust is not search integrity, it's business practices that exploit size/dominance to increase profits. Search as an industry is a free public service that impacts a significant portion of the US economy - however there is no responsibility or accountability when a search company makes an arbitrary change in the name of 'quality' that damages thousands or millions of people financially.
Gerry Whiye
01/18/2011 07:08 pm
It's amusing how Google only wants regulation when it suits Google, they are actively pushing for regulations in the UK of the links that could potentially affect their current algorithms, despite the fact we are not always linking to impact Google, it seems a tad two faced to me. No offence Mr Cuttts.
Real World Traffic
01/18/2011 09:10 pm
I agree to some extent, but at the end of the day they are a business and they have to look out for number one.
Brian Ussery
01/19/2011 09:57 pm
I'd like to see that presentation too, sounds pretty interesting!