Ask Kalena

You look familiar. Are you on Twitter? Subscribed to my feed yet?

Dear Kalena…

How do I remove lies, and false accusations about me on Google? Please help!

Rudy

Dear Rudy

Google provide the following support articles that may help: Remove information from Google: Remove a page or site from Google’s search results and if the information is of a personal nature, you may also find this useful: Personal information in search results.

Google’s job as a search engine is to find, sort and categorize information. They can only index what they find, so my first suggestion would be to try and avoid doing things or annoying people which could inspire them to create false information in the first place. Sometimes this is easier said than done, in which case, you should really go after the source of the information and not Google. Try contacting the website owners who are publishing the false information and ask them to stop (either politely or by threatening legal action).

You could also try and make the lies and false information work in your favor. Respond intelligently and politely explaining how the information could have been misconstrued and then provide the readers with the correct info.

If this isn’t possible, then the next thing you can do is create favorable information about yourself on various third party websites. Setup social media profiles on all the major networks, offer to guest blog, distribute articles and press releases about you and your company etc. Then build links to promote these third party sites. If done well, this can outrank the negative information about you.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Peter Newsome
SiteMost SEO Services

A female pedestrian has filed suit against Google (PDF link) after she was hit by a car in Utah while following Google Maps directions on her mobile phone.

The Californian woman, Lauren Rosenberg, was following directions to Park City Utah on Google Maps, that eventually led her to a four lane street without a sidewalk on her side. Although it was pitch black, Ms Rosenberg believed she could reach the snow-packed sidewalk on the other side of the street and tried to cross. Before she even reached the median, she was struck by a speeding car and received multiple fractures, requiring her hospitalization and weeks of intensive rehabilitation.

Ms Rosenberg is suing Google for the cost of her medical bills (totalling over $100K), plus loss of earnings and punitive damages. She is also suing the driver of the car that hit her. Ms Rosenberg and her lawyer Allen Young allege that the search giant failed to supply adequate warnings to pedestrians and instead supplied unsafe walking directions.

It’s unclear yet what sort of case Ms Rosenberg will have against Google, but it’s interesting to note that Google’s walking directions are still in BETA and pedestrian warnings are apparently not visible on cell phones or PDAs, only on the desktop versions of Google Maps.

If you’re a Twitter user you might have received an email from Twitter founder Biz Stone last week about a change to their Terms of Service (TOS).

It’s highly unusual for Twitter to email their users directly, so it definitely got my attention. Turns out they’ve made a major update to their TOS, with key changes to the way Twitter addresses:

• Advertising
• Ownership
• APIs
• Spam

The biggest change has to do with ownership. There’s been some controversy since the micro-blogging service launched about who actually owns the content of your tweets. A few power Twitter users have profited from the compilation of various tweets into published formats and there’s been some confusion as to their legal rights to do so.

Well it’s now been confirmed that YOU actually own the content of your tweets, while Twitter reserves the right to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” them.

A summary of the major changes to the TOS can be found in Twitter’s official blog post about the subject.

Twitter are also welcoming feedback from users about the new TOS, via the “feedback” link on the Terms of Service page.

Twitter isn’t having a good week. As well as suffering a mighty DDoS attack, it looks like they’re being sued for patent infringement.

TechRadium, a Texas-based technology company which makes mass notification systems for public safety organizations and the military, is suing Twitter for patent infringement. The scary part is that TechRadium may very well have an excellent case. The safety company has three patents relating to the delivery of mass notification:

1) Patent 7,130,389, applied for in 2005 and granted in 2006, consisting of a digital notification and response system.

2) Patent 7,496,183, applied for in 2007 and granted in 2009 – a method to provide digital notification; and

3) Patent 7,519,165, applied for in 2007 and granted in 2009 – a method for providing digital notification and receiving responses.

Clearly, TechRadium find the Twitter service to be too similar to their patented methods. Here’s an extract from the actual lawsuit, filed in Texas on August 4:

“On information and belief, Defendant, Twitter, makes, uses, sells, or otherwise provides throughout United States and within the geographical area covered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas the systems and methods described by the claims in the ‘389, ‘183 and ‘165 Patents.”

TechRadium are deadly serious about this. They’re seeking a permanent injunction against Twitter for the use of their patented technology.

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise to Twitter. According to TechCrunch, Twitter executives were well aware of their vulnerable position in relation to potential patent lawsuits. In a meeting in February this year, staff discussed the likelihood of being sued for patent violation, recording in the meeting minutes:

“We will be sued for patent infringement, repeatedly and often. Should we get a great patent attorney to proactively go after these patents?”

So with one of the related patents issued as early as 2006, why have TechRadium waited so long to take legal action? One of the deciding factors have been market erosion. With the ever-increasing popularity of Twitter, it seems that TechRadium’s paying customers are choosing to use the social media service in lieu of TechRadium’s paid offering, since both services offer basically the same thing.

TechRadium is losing business and they’ve decided the time is right to defend their patents. Also, it looks as though the crucial Patent ‘165 was only granted to TechRadium in April, so they may have waited until they had all their legal ducks in a row before filing against the cashed-up Twitter.

We’ll keep you up to date with developments as the case continues.

Dear Kalena (and Jacqueline in this case),

Are there any issues with an SEO company taking on clients that are competitors? Who will get ranked highest and is strategic marketing info passed on to competitors?

David Ash

Dear David,

In my opinion, an ethical SEO company has no place taking on clients that are in direct competition, like two businesses that are targeting the exact same market with the same keywords. Furthermore, a trustworthy SEO company definitely wouldn’t pass any strategic information on to competitors – look up a company before you work with them, and be sure to go past the first page or two of results. After all, an SEO firm probably knows how to push anything negative down in the SERPs, but they can’t make that stuff disappear completely.

For SEOs and search marketers themselves, taking on two clients that are direct competitors can lead to many ethical quandaries, so therefore, each client’s chosen keywords and even a non-compete clause should be written into your contracts. You should always protect yourself legally – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in that regard.

If you are planning on working with an SEO firm and you are concerned about that same company working with competitors, ask them about their confidentiality practices and such before you sign anything; if you are an SEO consultant wondering about dealing with two clients that compete, consider the differences between those clients. Are they really that similar, to the point where they would go after the exact same keywords? Do they have different specialties or do they operate in different neighborhoods? If your potential clients are two distinctive companies in the same industry, it is possible to still work with them ethically if you target separate keywords and focus on their differences (and of course, if you keep everything confidential).

Best of luck!

-Jacqueline

SEOGroup.com and Ocean19.com