Remove any Site From Google (even if you don't control it)

Post by zach » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 2:42 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #17

[deleted] wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

The story goes: The huge printing presses of a major Chicago newspaper began malfunctioning on the Saturday before Christmas, putting all the revenue for advertising that was to appear in the Sunday paper in jeopardy. None of the technicians could track down the problem. Finally, a frantic call was made to the retired printer who had worked with these presses for over 40 years. “We’ll pay anything; just come in and f…

Post by jacques_chester » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 2:52 AM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #30

jacques_chester wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a back door, it's an abuse of an existing approach. Google could weight the process in one of two ways: 1. in favour of the complaint-maker. 2. in favour of the website-owner. If they favour the complainant, then website deletion is presumed to go ahead. If the webmaster, then it is presumed to be held up. Google chose a compromise: the complaint is acted on, after a delay. The webmaster gets notified throug…

I think you're misunderstanding the article. Google webmaster tools allows the website owner to request links to their own sites be removed. The poster has discovered that this form can be used to request any url be removed, and Google will think it's being submitted by the owner of that URL. This has nothing to do with users complaining about a URL.

Post by pueblo » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 3:03 AM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #22

cooldeal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that it's a basic dev and QA fail not to check for this, especially with people of the caliber that Google is supposed to recruit.

Process always falls down at some point, it's why we have bugs in the first place. The point of view that "obvious bugs should never happen" is pretty obviously broken, you just try to make them as rare as humanly possible. Besides, simple looking things from the outside can be maddeningly complex from the inside - for all we know this could be related to an obscure bug in their test framework marking it as passed wh…

Post by ethereal » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 3:22 AM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #25

Imagine if LulzSec found this first

Post by orblivion » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 4:01 AM UTC

ethereal wrote: post #37

orblivion wrote: post #25

Imagine if LulzSec found this first

Personally, I would be more concerned if someone with malicious intent and the ability to keep silent about what they have done had found & exploited this. [0] Advertise: remove your competitor from Google's search results for a day! If I didn't think it was illegal, I'd probably pay for that, were I in such a situation. [0] If, of course, it even existed in the first place. It seems plausible enough to me, even if I…