Jay Rockefeller and the US Senate Committee sent a letter to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo asking them to do a better job preventing "their search engines from being gamed through search engine optimization tactics."
Seriously, "search engine optimization tactics?" Really? The letter goes on, to explain that this is "scam involving moving services, which has seen affected consumers lose personal possessions and pay thousands of dollars above quoted prices to dodgy moving companies."
When does it become politically incorrect to associate SEO with scams and spam? Why can't they use a different job classification to talk about spammy SEO? Why not call it search spam tactics? By call it search engine optimization tactics?
I think we need one of us in the senate to write a letter to the US Senate Committee on how to classify our industry in a politically correct manner.
In any event, both TechCrunch and Search Engine Land have another view of this story. I am just covering it from a community perspective.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Note: This story was scheduled to be posted on this day, but was written earlier.
