There are only 2 articles right now, but I would love to get some feedback if anyone wants to provide any. I mostly write about things that I'm learning, and random thoughts. I'm interested in operating and distributed systems. Thanks!
That's surprising. The only other suggestion I have is to create a new listing on Maps with your website, a service-area listing where you don't have to provide a public address, but you still need to give Google some contact info in order to verify it. And then hope that -- over time -- Google ranks yours first when searching for that name.
Is it, though? I assume they tried to reach out to him, and he just said "no I'm real and not spam thanks bye".
WRT your second suggestion, I disregard that option because:
1. Even though I own the trademark, I'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening.
2. IMO It's just not fair that I have to challange a scammer in this race, since he doesn't even have the right to be there in the first place. Google should just fix their broken process.
>>1. Even though I own the trademark, I'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening.
I'm not a lawyer, but my layperson's understanding of trademarks is that filing and owning it also bears the responsibility of defending it. When trademark challenges are left unchallenged, the trademark you own becomes more likely to be further impinged on in the future (i.e. you must show a history of maintaining and challenging other claims). This is the flipside of David vs. Goliath horror stories where large companies go after small business owners or individuals -- they're defending their trademark.
In this case, you might be able to argue deliberate trademark tarnishment[1] as a form of trademark dilution[2]; not sure if it will help but worth thinking about legal options now if this bothers you this much.
not to be cynical, but I LOL'd at your 2. Google should just do a lot of things. However, they will only do things as long as those things make them money. Ignoring the problem costs them nothing, fixing will cost them.
I cannot update my post anymore, but I already wrote it in another reply.
The edit suggestions goes directly to the business owner. They can accept / deny the update request. I've also asked friends and colleagues to ask for the same edit and to report the listing as non existent but nothing happened.
The answer from the Google support I'm referring to in my post, is from a legal request I've sent to them.
This is the full response in Italian (this is the reason why I didn't attach it to the post):
Gentile Sig.
La ringraziamo per il suo messaggio.
Le facciamo presente che Google è un fornitore di informazioni, non un mediatore. Forniamo informazioni su luoghi, attività commerciali e altre informazioni relative ad una particolare parola di ricerca di ricerca, ma non rivendichiamo alcun diritto sulle etichette associate a tali contenuti. Per ulteriori informazioni, la invitiamo a consultare i nostri Termini di servizio all'indirizzo https://www.google.com/policies/terms/. Per questioni riguardanti il marchio, la preghiamo di rivolgersi direttamente al proprietario della scheda o del luogo in questione. Se il proprietario dei contenuti in questione decide di modificare eventuali informazioni in seguito alla tua richiesta, tale modifica si rifletterà nella scheda la prossima volta che i robot di Google eseguono la scansione del relativo materiale di origine.
Se ritiene che informazioni personali come il suo numero di telefono vengano visualizzate nei risultati di ricerca relativi a un'attività o a una località, può segnalare il problema tramite Google Maps seguendo le istruzioni riportate in questa pagina: https://support.google.com/business/answer/6163683
Cordiali saluti,
Il team di Google
Please notice that Sig. doesn't include my name in the email I've received.
This is google translate:
We would like to point out that Google is an information provider, not a broker. We provide information about places, businesses, and other information related to a particular search word, but we do not claim any rights on the labels associated with that content. For further information, please consult our Terms of Service at https://www.google.com/policies/terms/. For trademark issues, please contact the owner of the listing or location directly. If the owner of the content in question decides to change any information following your request, this change will be reflected in the tab the next time Google's robots scan its source material.
If you believe that personal information such as your phone number appears in search results for an activity or location, you can report the problem via Google Maps by following the instructions on this page:
Since the business listing is fake and your website/blog is real can you contact Google and claim that you are the actual owner of the business and this person has fraudulently claimed it?
Since he owns the trademark and (according to his other answers) the business doesn't seem to be legitimate, or even located in the address, that's what I would do as well.
I don't think this is the "correct" path. Google should be more open to requests, and try to be more understanding on users' requests.
Anyway, as I wrote in another comment the person behind this is either a normal person using his home address or someone working for another company located at that address.
This means that Google has assigned the ownership to him already. I couldn't find any way for requesting the ownership to the entry, but only a "ask the owner access to this entry" page.
Also, a business might exists in that address, but it's certainly not called like my blog.
Do you operate the blog as an individual? Meaning you don’t have any sort of business entity involved? If so maybe you could report a case of identity theft to your local police department and then send Google the police report via certified mail to their legal department along with a letter asking them to correct the information.
I thought google didn't really have any customer support or any humans involved in most things. It was all automated systems built by software engineers for the most part.
Sorry, I really meant to write "ask the current owner to get access to this entry". Meaning that I would need to ask the current owner to allow me to access the entry.
Call me cynical (which is fair), but I would be very pleasantly surprised if Google's "report inappropriate results" links were actually logged and analyzed by an actual human instead of routed to /dev/null, because that seems like a whole lot of work for a company famous for not having reachable human support.
The message feels more like one to placate users into believing their concerns will be addressed, and hoping said users won't follow up on it to see if any action has been taken. I do hope I'm wrong.
This is one of the things that got myself very mad at Google. They didn't even bother to put my name / surname in the response email they sent. The follow up response to my response, was a subset of the first response, and still without my name after "Sig. ".
In my last email with no response (4 days ago) I've asked to be called on the phone. They probably have a special place in /dev/null for emails sent by my address.
I am the holder of the trademark, but I'm not sure it will be that easy unfortunately. The issue is that according to my research, there are no tech business located at that address. So maybe it's a private person or someone working in other businessess at that address. Also, since I have a feeling that there is a scammer behind this, I'm not sure if a robber will care about this kind of threaten. Of course it might be worth a shot, but I think it's incredible that google is allowing these kind of things to happen leaving users powerless. And I'm also kind of lucky because I hold the trademark (something valued zero at google, but it might help me getting out of this) but think about people not even knowing their website is associated to other businessess.
You're probably right. They would only be infringing your trademark if they were doing business in the same category of goods and services. What they're doing sounds much more like some kind of defamation than any kind of trademark infringement. But if they're criminals they probably don't care much about the possibility of a civil action.
Google Maps are rubbish. In my experience they don't even show streets in the right place. When you're ordering something you can always write in the "delivery instructions" something like: "Don't use Google; try openstreetmap.org instead." Then, if they turn up an hour late somewhat grumpy: "I did warn you!"
> In my experience they don't even show streets in the right place.
The map editing link / tools have been made much more prominent and accessible over the last year or two. I've moved done streets in my town and the experience was fairly painless.
That's not "map editing", it's some half-assed attempt that at best allows you to modify some minor details of map listings. It is absolutely pathetic compared to the features of OSM map editor and the map editor GMaps had. You can't even now enter a place's name in three local languages for f* sake.
It's IMHO because no longer can users properly edit maps. It's now only poor crowdsourced+automagical judgement of minor changes.
There's a post office closed for a year or so now that literally can't be removed, Google thinks it's correct and edits get autorejected. It's incredibly stupid.
I have mentioned this before and mentioning again hoping someone from google will read. Google support literally sucks or they don't know how to do business at all. People are willing to pay for support, so someone at google can listen. But that option is also not available. These days hacker news is only way to get attention from Google.
Another example, recently I tried to connect my blog with google ad-sense ( I bought domain from google and also using g-suite). THis is the response I got,
Some of our services are temporarily experiencing delays during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This means that we’re unable to review your site at this time.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience.
Ok I got it. I can understand current situation. But com'n guys at least have courtesy to update me when your services are up. Do you wanna apply me again and again ? If I do, you will mark me as spam. These guys never return a single note on any feedback. What do you want me to do ?
I don't think this is accurate, I've been through trademark requests with Google and it has always worked out before lawyers need to be involved. It does take time and you have to rattle a few bells but there are procedures in place.
The best advice I can give you, if/when you talk to a real person at Google and they are not helpful, just hang-up and try again until you find someone who can help you.
Maybe it's because of the covid situation, but if you read the content of the email they sent to me (I've posted it in another comment) I probably didn't even have the chance to talk with a real human being. This is why I've reached out to HN. Hopefully I eventually be able to talk with someone though, thanks for the advice.
Fascinating use of language. Superstition implies belief in fate / deity.
It doesn't surprise to see this written now, even if only ironically.
"The algorithm cannot be understood by anyone" - which is a fact. So we summon the fates to describe its expected behaviour.
If this comment seems personal, that wasn't intended. I really don't know how people in SEO tend to communicate. But I just heard this kind of language for the first time. So it's just a sign of the times.
I can't tell if this is a bit where you play the oblivious pedant, or if you can't tell they were referring to this policy. Either way, I don't think they were suggesting some cosmic influence.
@Kye
No pedantry from here. I had already understood the policy.
So this comment wasn't about the policy, it was all about the language. You seem to wish to understand, so ...
It was a pretty wide tangent from the start. I imagine (perhaps incorrectly) that it may eventually become common for people to understand algorithm-lore as say the Runes were once understood. I interpreted the language used here as a harbinger.
I am vouching for this comment. The choice of words seems interesting to me too. You don't have to agree with it but I do not see any sign of commenting in bad faith - I think this comment should be unflagged.
I think the mistake was "Superstition implies belief in fate / deity." After reading the whole thing, I guess what they probably meant was dry linguisting commentary, but on first glance it looks like they're saying the person they're replying to is irrational.
This is a mistake I used to make. It's fun to pull apart language, but to the person whose language is being analysed, it often feels like mockery. It's important to make it 100% crystal clear your fun analysis isn't about the person. Make it clear it's an aside by focusing on the point before moving on to the postscript with a clear topic shift.
>> It's important to make it 100% crystal clear your fun analysis isn't about the person.
>> If this comment seems personal, that wasn't intended.
That wasn't an edit, it was in my first commit. 100% Crystal clear?
I appreciate you're trying to help but, in doing so please don't belittle my comment as "fun analysis". Though it mightn't have come over perfectly, I meant it. And it's important. To me at least.
You said that it is showing twitter and fb links. Are you sure this is google maps listing and not a knowledge graph entry? Those are two different things.
Yep, it's google maps listing. I think that twitter and fb links are scraped by Google though, but the listing is definitely a google maps entry. The owner of the thing is even answering the reviews.
I like strongly typed and functional programming. But I would rather use a "pythonic" approach to solve problems in python.
OFC there might be some cases where for example one of your dependency is python, and you still want to be able to write correct code. But in general, If you want types and functional constructs, IMO you should use something else.
I've been worked for a while now on an new Supervisor / Init system written in Rust: https://github.com/FedericoPonzi/horust/
Learnt a lot in the process and there are so much things still to do! Feel free to drop me a message if you're interested in contributing, curious or just to say hi :)
