Sue Scheff: Google Grows Smarter

March 25th, 2009

Source: ReputationDefender Blog


Yesterday it was announced that Google has gone all language-y on the web, updating its algorithms to understand not only the words being searched, but also the relationship between words. This is known as search semantics, and it is Google’s newest attempt to impress the web public with relevant search results.

Aside from the new word-relationship component, Google has also increased the characters devoted to summary paragraphs that attempt to pin down what people are searching for. In a recent blog post Google search quality team technical lead Ori Allon and snippets team engineer Ken Wilder wrote that the company “[is] deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search. We are now able to target more queries, more languages, and make our suggestions more relevant to what you actually need to know.”
Heretofore Internet search services have focused on matching key words typed into query boxes with words at websites or in other online data. The newest generation of Internet users has caused a rise in demand for semantic searches that go beyond matching words to actually understanding what sentences or combinations of words mean. The trick, from a company stand point, has been whether or not adequate technology can be developed to process the increasingly complex searches with the high speed that Internet users have come to expect.

Not content with their current position behind Google in terms of search, Microsoft has recently stated that it is testing a Kumo.com semantic search engine. The hope is that the new search technology will be more popular than Microsoft’s current Live Search service, catapulting it beyond Yahoo! and Google.

As of Tuesday Google has rolled out semantic search capabilities in 37 languages. Some examples given by Wilder and Allon included a search in Russian for “fortune-telling with cards” which brought up search results for “tarot” and “divination.” Conversely, a Google search in English for “principles of physics” generated suggestions about “big bang” and “quantum mechanics.”

Sue Scheff: ReputationDefender in French Press

Courrier International has a nice piece about Reputation Management, Michael Fertik and ReputationDefender.

The article is in French, but speaks to the emerging industry that ReputationDefender pioneered, Online Identity Management.

Interested readers who do not parlez francais, can check out Babelfish to get the international buzz on ReputationDefender.

Sue Scheff Announces Book #2 - Google Bomb - Take Cover!

“GOOGLE BOMB” Take Cover! by John Dozier and Sue Scheff

Do you know what Google is saying about you?

Oh yes, it is almost here, my second book! This time around, I am honored to have co-author and Internet Specialist Attorney, John Dozier .

As my story of my landmark case of $11.3M jury verdict for damages unravels - many questions answers, John Dozier will bring us the legal landscape of today’s Cyber World - how to protect your online image and maintain a profile you are proud of! Have you thought about Internet Gossip vs Internet Fact? How do you know the difference? Don’t get caught in the web - read Google Bomb!

To compound our dynamic and explosive upcoming best seller - Michael Fertik, CEO and Founder of ReputationDefender will be writing the foreword! ReputationDefender is one of the pioneers in managing online reputations and helping keep your kids privacy safe online.

This timely book will offer you tools and remedies as well as a very compelling story that will keep you turning those pages! Remember, a 20 year reputation today can be destroyed within 20 minutes of vicious keystrokes.

Monkeys Don’t Fly? Do they? Ahhhh, just wait and you will see - the Internet has become its’ own animal. The Internet can be an educational tool - but - it can also be a lethal weapon!

Published by Health Communications Inc. (HCI) - Google Bomb will be released in Fall 2009.

Sue Scheff: Digital Journal

Model v. Google, ‘Net Verbal Abuse, Provokes Lawsuits

That’s because at least one woman has taken up the charge to get rid of verbal abuse and defamation. But is this a reasonable approach to free speech and will people be screaming about their rights if she wins or is this woman walking the walk that many women applaud?

Turns out that verbal abuse against women is not only in the bedroom and the kitchen of many homes, it is rampant online as well. Certainly men are abused as well, so they need not write in and say so. It’s a given. But verbal abuse online may be examined in the same way as other forms, and so may defamation.

One woman has had enough and isn’t going to take it anymore. There are other concerns that this case may also give precedent. Young bloggers might not applaud this woman’s right to fight, but listen up because the issue might become bigger then just this one case. Here it is, for your reading consumption.

Liskula Cohen, a model in Canada, has decided to sue Google because of offensive remarks that were made about her on a blog hosted by the Google service, Blogger publishing. This was reported originally by the. New York Daily News. Cohen, age 36, seeks the identity of the individual she claims slandered her, calling her certain epithets, most of which weren’t printed in the article, and the one that was is this “Our #1 skanky superstar.

The blog is called Skanks in NYC, and devotes itself to ridiculing photographs of the model. So Cohen is pursuing a claim against Google, demanding the identity of the blogger who is exercising what he or she believes is a free speech right to write anything. Her lawyer, after examining the site, has called it "libelous" and "defamatory."

A reporter who outlined the New York Daily News story asked the question, “Is her claim against Google viable?” She answered her own question by saying, “Um, probably not.” Perhaps the reporter does not know the meaning of defamation or doesn’t understand why there are site restrictions on posting certain types of remarks.

That’s likely because owners don’t want the possibility of getting into some sort of legal action. Perhaps she didn’t look up the meaning of defamation or understood what a lawyer deems it to be and what the limits are on free speech. Or perhaps she is not concerned about recent decisions that could set a precedent on what's coming up.

In Natchitoches, Louisiana in the United States, a number of professional people and civic leaders are up in arms about personal attacks that have gone on Topix. People hiding beyond made-up monikers have sometimes become quite vitriolic in their attacks. During an election of the local sheriff, they became racially charged as the sheriff is Creole. In a town with a significant racist past through slavery, only integrated in the late 60’s, this was troublesome. Complaint to the forum moderator sometimes doesn’t work nor do letters to the President of Topix. So some people are leading the charge to do something legislatively, as has been done in other parts of the world. The Anti-Defamation League is seeking to stop the use of the Internet in spreading hate speech. Germany has already moved to do something about it, according to this article, but there is still much to do.

Perhaps the writer on CNET might examine this website that outlines an award given to a plaintiff recently. Sue Scheff of Weston, Florida, pursued a judgment against a Louisiana woman and was awarded by the courts $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against the defendant who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud." A law professor at the University of Florida states that there may be a new trend in court cases with online messages.

Now about that model’s claim and whether or not it is viable. Um, possibly so, if the Florida precedent is used and the model’s claim found to be legitimate.

Dozier Internet Law: $11.3 Million Sue Scheff Defamation Judgment Confirmed on Appeal

Dozier Internet Law is constantly battling the scofflaws of the web. On the one hand, the Internet as a whole opens up the world to everyone. On the other hand, it opens up the world to, well...to everyone. Defamation laws and related judicial interpretations evolved historically at a time, and in an environment, in which there were inherent protections that served as a filter of sorts. Today those protections are lost to the ability to distribute attacks to millions overnight. Want to physically picket a business?

You have to invest time and disclose your identity if you are going to coordinate and show up at a business. Want to print and distribute flyers, or take out an advertisement or run a commercial? Expensive, of course. And newspapers and television wouldn't print, even as ads or commercials, alot of the outrageous claims and statements being readily distributed online.Once in a while, Dozier Internet Law sees comments encouraging such illegality from what might seem to be credible sources. But the application and interpretation of laws dealing with disparagement and defamation and other lawlessness will eventually catch up with the online scofflaws, and defending misconduct by claiming you saw a blog by a lawyer saying it was legal is not a defense.

On October 15, 2008 the District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida just rejected an appeal from the Defendant and confirmed a JURY judgment on behalf of Susan Scheff in the sum of $11.3 Million, of which $5 Million was for punitive damages (on behalf of Susan Scheff and her very small business), against an individual who took it upon herself to publish allegedly defamatory statements online.

Read the plaintiff's comments by Sue Scheff about "free speech".Online defamation and product disparagement is a huge issue, of course, and businesses are under attack. This judgment is just another example of the legal system catching up with online misconduct. And instead of a real attempt to establish standards and self police and self regulate, one blogger organization has started selling insurance to bloggers. It strikes me that insurance coverage is a wonderful thing for the businesses under attack.

At Dozier Internet Law we hear from dozens of victims of online blog attacks each week, it seems. The possibility of insurance coverage is great. Online defamation promises to be a growth industry for trial lawyers. Another example, I surmise, of an unanticipated and unintended consequence...but this time of mammoth proportions.

Sue Scheff - Voice Fighting Against Internet Gossip

Sue Scheff is a parent advocate who founded Parents’ Universal Resources Experts, Inc. (P.U.R.E.) in 2001. She has been featured on 20/20, The Rachel Ray Show, ABC News, Canadian CBC Sunday News Magazine, CNN Headline News, Fox News, BBC Talk Radio, and NPR, discussing topics of Internet defamation as well as her work helping troubled teens and their families through her organization.

To learn more about P.U.R.E. http://www.helpyourteens.com/ and to contact the author, visit http://www.suescheff.com/.

I defeated the one of the largest teen help programs (WWASPS aka Carolina Springs Academy) in both a jury trial and the Supreme Court of Appeals. I went on to win one of the largest jury verdicts of $11.3M for damages done to me on the Internet.I have fought back and won! My book "Wit's End!" is now available.