Google LogoIt turns out that many major corporations may not have any conscience whatsoever.  We’ll pause here for a moment while you pick your chins up off of the floor.

Yes.  Apparently, old-style business ethics have no place in the world of online marketing.  As Exhibit Number One, we present this Wall Street Journal article, that (in summary) explains that after seeing Chrysler’s wildly popular “Imported from Detroit” commercial that aired during the Super Bowl (previously featured here), GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick immediately ordered his team to corner the market on the phrase “Imported from Detroit” when used as a Google search term.  The article goes on to explain that GM also placed high bids for “Darth Vader” in order to divert some of the traffic that would otherwise have (rightly) gone to Volkswagon as a result of their hugely successful ad featuring a child playing the part of the classic villain.

… funny that they never saw the parallel as they slipped to the dark side.

More after the jump…

What we find most disturbing about the article is not the information within it, but the matter-of-fact tone with which it is delivered.  Of course, you could certainly chalk the lack of reprisal up to journalistic integrity, but that’s no fun at all for this discussion (and it’s kind of a cop out).  The thing is that the real headline for that article should not have been “After Eminem’s Chrysler Ad, GM Wages Keyword Battle”.  It should have been “Lazy Executive Piggybacks on the Creativity of Others”.

You see, in the olden days (pre-Google – or “p.g.“) there was this thing called “business ethics”.  It was a fairly straightforward system wherein all concerned parties were led by a tiny voice inside that prevented them (ideally) from doing things that they would prefer not be done to them.  Ergo, one would never try to steal someone else’s well-won thunder.  One would rather prefer to earn their own thunder through the execution of of their own well-conceived and executed advertising campaign.  Then one would be filled with the feeling of pride that accompanies a job well done.

… but that was p.g.

Nowadays, we’re all subject to a set of rules we’re not allowed to see.  Every year there are billions of dollars spent across a wide spectrum of businesses in an attempt to reverse-engineer (through the use of available anecdotal evidence) the processes by which success may be achieved in both paid and organic search.  It’s like trying to understand how an internal combustion engine operates by being run over by a car and really paying attention as it happens.  It’s fast, it’s brutal and the results can be devastating.  Just ask J.C.Penny.

In this in-depth investigative piece by New York Time Writer, David Segal, we learn that J.C.Penny’s online marketing firm (who chose not to comment for the piece) has been engaged in a wide-reaching and highly successful campaign involving false linkbuilding in order to achieve high organic ranking for items ranging from dresses to area rugs.  Penny’s even ranked higher for Samsonite luggage than the manufacturer themselves.  Of course, nothing that they did was strictly illegal, but it definitely falls into the realm of “black hat” practices.  It’s like counting cards or leaning over the rail at the tiger exhibit at the zoo: it is frowned upon and likely to lead to woe.  In this case, Penny’s has definitely felt the Tiger’s wrath.

Once the scheme was uncovered, Google began manually adjusting all of the affected search results, leading to a critical and dramatic loss of natural rank for categories Penny’s used to dominate.  In several cases where Penny’s had ranked #1, they soon found themselves many pages deep in the listings, effectively wiping the slate clean and forcing them to find another way to earn their ranking using the agreed-upon set of rules.

And therein lies the problem.  While Google believes there is a pretty clear set of rules, they themselves admit that “…It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it.”  So not only is their methodology a closely-guarded secret, but they’ve failed to even define the ways in which you can avoid offending them.  There’s some talk of keeping to “the spirit” of their intentions, but that’s it.  It’s left up to each individual to see gray and define it as either black or white.  Which brings us back to our original question:

Did Google kill business ethics?

It’s a good question.  It seems that at the very least, they’ve created an environment in which many people (who are probably perfectly decent folks in nearly every single way), now feel perfectly comfortable gaming a system that they see as practically daring them to do so.  When faced with a famously cryptic corporation that fails to fully explain its own rules, it feels a little easier to settle into a gray area and convince yourself that it’s white.  The little voice inside, it seems, needs clearer boundaries.  Left to our own devices in an incredibly competitive marketplace, apparently more and more big-name eCommerce merchants and service providers have abandoned The Golden Rule in favor of a desperate, every-man-for-himself strategy.

So does Google bear responsibility for this visible shift in what people are willing to do to get ahead or are they just a handy target because they’re the Big Boys in the game?  When players as large as J.C.Penny dabble in black hat practices, do smaller players have any choice anymore?  Are they not compelled to dabble in a little black hat practice themselves, just to compete?

Penny’s for their part, denies that they were directly involved in any way.  Via Darcie Brossart, a J.C. Penny spokeswoman, “JC Penney was in no way involved in the posting of the links discussed in the article. We did not authorize them and we were not aware that they had been posted. To be clear, we do not tolerate violations of our policies regarding natural search, which reflect Google’s guidelines.”

… but come on.  Before being exposed, Penny’s ranked above arearugs.com for the term “area rugs”.  Clearly, someone is engaging in some willful ignorance at the very least.  This being the case, in all fairness, we have to spread some of the blame for the current state of affairs around to include deep-pocketed players who are willing to squish their eyes shut, put their fingers in their ears and scream “NA NA NA NA NA – I can’t hear you!” as their contractors drag them to the top of the rankings over a bloodied pile of their less well-heeled competitors.

Our conclusions?  Google is in a difficult position.  As the 256,000 ton gorilla of this very, very young industry, they are (like it or not) the standard bearers for all organic and paid search, and as a wise, fictional man once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Google has worked quickly to rectify the problem with Penny’s (as soon as it was revealed to them) and it seems as though they’re deeply concerned with the fairness of their processes.  However, as another wise (non-fictional) man once said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”  If you are the implicit guardian of the ethics of an entire industry, it truly falls upon your shoulders to ensure that those ethical guidelines are universally honorable and passionately protected.

Google is in a position in the business world that is similar to the United States’ position in the world world.  They are the Internet’s (occasionally grudging) policeman (as the U.S. is the consistently grudging policeman of the world).  For every act, they are more despised by one group and more revered by another.  Regardless of this, they have a genuine responsibility to strive to be better than they can ever hope to be in the pursuit of interweb equality.  They must be tireless and strong on behalf of those of us who live under their law.  With this in mind, we suggest a small alteration in their motto.  Rather than “Don’t Be Evil”, they may want to consider “Be Good.”

… maybe the goodness will be contagious.