I always have weird experiences with Google. Not too long ago, searches for al-Jazeera crashed every computer at this office, but could not be replicated anywhere else. Now, the following happens on one laptop, but cannot be replicated on other computers.
   I already have the Casino Royale (2006) DVD, but wanted to see what overseas versions of it featured (it is pretty light on the extras). Typing in “Casino Royale” DVD in the Google Toolbar resulted in the following Google page.



   It looks innocent enough, but when I run my mouse over the first entry, supposedly at Amazon UK, I see a very different URL in the status bar: one at google.com. Clicking on it results in this page:



As you can see, it’s a Google page. Does Amazon UK know that Google displays whatever it darn well likes? (The cache shows the original page.)
   This is why I keep saying Google has forgotten us, the everyday people, and is doing what it can for the American corporate good. Now we know how folks inside Red China feel when using Google.
   And not only that: the top part of the screen does not even show the DVD I was looking for, but the 1967 Casino Royale movie.
   Personally, I think this is mean—some people have worked hard for their results to be in the top 10. They do not expect Google to display its own pages using their data. In fact, I think it even harms those selling through Google Checkout, or whatever the service is called: their brands become associated with subverting search results.
   But where will we go? Until Gigablast and others are in the collective consciousness, bringing search results that rival Google’s, then we might keep feeding the queries into our Google search bars. Posted by Jack Yan, 21:56  permalink

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