[Air-L] 'Human error' halts Google search

[Robert Ackland]

 From The Australian newspaper (online):

"PEOPLE using the internet search page Google were stunned to see 
erroneous messages reporting that every site turned up in their results 
might be harmful."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24991997-12377,00.html

I don't know how widespread this problem was (possibly only affected 
Australia?) but I was one of the people affected by this.  I wouldn't 
say that I was stunned.  It was more a sense of frustration that my 
late-night attempt to get linux running properly on my brand-new laptop 
was made even more painful by my having to cut-and-paste URLs to pages 
containing potential solutions into another tab, because Google (and 
StopBadware.org) had erroneously identified the site as potentially 
hosting malware.

It was also a sense of concern that my life is increasingly so 
contingent on the Google search infrastructure (without the help of 
those online forums, the new laptop was essentially an expensive 
paperweight).
 
OK, I acknowledge that I could have used another search engine.  Also, 
at least I could still search, even if it was made more inconvenient.  I 
also acknowledge that the problem was fixed within an hour. 

But I think it is somewhat troubling that the increasingly important 
service of online search can be compromised (even just for an hour) by a 
research project.  This might be a bit of a stretch, but what if water 
or electricity services were inadvertently cut or restricted because of 
a research project focusing on "consumer complaints".

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Dr Robert Ackland
Fellow and Masters Coordinator
Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute
The Australian National University

e-mail:   robert.ackland at anu.edu.au
homepage: http://adsri.anu.edu.au/people/robert.php
project:  http://voson.anu.edu.au
ph./fax:  +61 2 6125 0312/+61 2 6125 2992
mail:     Coombs Building, 9
          Canberra, ACT 0200
          AUSTRALIA

Information about the Master of Social Research
(Social Science of the Internet specialisation):
http://adsri.anu.edu.au/study/msr.php
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