Is Google Killing the Internet
Seth Jayson had an interesting piece over on the Motley Fool recently:
How Google is Killing the Internet
It's a provocative piece about how the success of Adsense has led to the pollution of the algorithmic search results in all search engines by splogs, link farms and scraper sites. The activity is tacitly endorsed by Google et al when they look the other way even though these sites violate published Terms of Service. And why? Because Google makes a ton of dough from these sites, even though they offer little value.
To all this activity we can also add the much maligned domain parking business of Google, both through its "Adsense for Domains" program, and 3rd party partners such as Fabulous.com or Domain Sponsor. I defend the legitimacy of this business to all comers when it comes to generic domain names and search terms (ie - It's an entirely legitimate and USEFUL practice... users get relevant information). A user needs to visit one less site, because they come to expect useful search results when they type a domain name into their browser. However, Google and Yahoo are both guiltyguiltyguilty when it comes to enabling pretty clear cut cases of trademark violations in domain registrations and then looking the other way. Probably hundreds of 000's or parked sites out there of this type and Google is totally complicit in the activity when they look the other way.
