SCAM!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=advertising%20google%20fraud&st=cse

Everyone should read this article!

Today, my English professor, a few other students and I had a very interesting discussion about this article.  A quick overview of the article: A man has beat the Google system.  He runs an online company that sells eye wear, but he has no inventory of his own.  (I will refrain from using the site's name just in case it creates more publicity for him.)  Once consumers order from him, he goes to places such as Ebay and buys what his customer requested.  This would work, except for the fact that all of the sunglasses that he sells are cheap knock-offs.  Customers realize the scam so attempt to return their orders.  Unfortunately for them, this man is aggressive.  He threatens them, most of the time causing the angered customers to post reviews of sites.  All of the reviews that mention his company's name, whether positive or negative, get his site boosted a little higher on search engines like Google.  He found that the more people he pissed off, the more they complained, which lead to more service.
How a scam artist as popular as him wasn't caught sooner blows my mind!  The internet is a scary place, especially when someone unknown acquires all of your information.  We all need to be especially careful when using our names, addresses, credit cards, etc online.  Also, I now understand Google a little better - even the "more relevant" searches could only be high up because of negative popularity.  Watch out for the scammers!!