TECH

Virus exposes the good and bad of tech

Life, James Hein, Published on 22/04/2020

» Google has not been doing so well in the UK. A High Court battle between Foundem and Google, which has been ongoing since 2006, has reached an interesting stage. The issue is ranking algorithms. Readers will remember that I've written about this subject in the past. Foundem had asked the court to approve a review of Google's ranking algorithms by an independent expert. Their claim is that Google demoted Foundem in favour of paid adverts because Foundem is a commercial rival. Google was given the offer to withdraw their evidence that only a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) engineer could understand and when they refused, a choice was made to let an expert examine an unredacted version of the evidence and comment on it. This puts Google in an interesting place. If they withdraw their redacted evidence, it could indicate they are trying to hide something and if they refuse expert analysis, it could indicate the same thing. Their claim is that if an expert looks at the code, they will lose their competitive advantage. Yes, the judge saw through this one as well. The case is currently on hold amid the current Covid-19 situation.