Non-existent Ecademy profile gets #1 Google spot

February 7, 2010 By 2 Comments

And what the hell is ‘unwired-ecademy’?

I deleted my Ecademy account about two months ago since I wasn’t using it and didn’t really like the way Ecademy was developing.

First thing I noticed when I came to close it down was… that I couldn’t.  No instructions anywhere.  I emailed a couple of times to Ecademy tech support, but got no answer.

I blogged a couple of times; nobody picked it up.

Finally, I found a link (via an angry ex-Ecademist’s blog) to an option that seemed to offer the possibility of deleting my account.

Amusing, then to see this strange Ecademy listing (above) appear at #1 in Google for a search on my own name just now.  It leads to this page.

Firstly what the hell is ‘unwired-Ecademy’??  Secondly, why is it connected with my name?  And why does my name keep turning up in Ecademy’s foreign databases?  Seems to me that they’re holding on to my information.  What else am I supposed to think? Surely the Spiders From Google would have updated the indexes by now if I had successfully deleted my details from their system?

Worse, I just discovered something else. I’ve created an Ecademy account for a client and have just noticed that I can’t log out from my client’s account.  For some reason, Firefox (or Ecademy) just won’t let me.

What is going on here? And what exactly is ‘unwired-ecademy’?

Filed Under: GRRRR!!!, networking, what do you think?

Several reasons why not to use the first image you find in Google

February 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

SEO companies: if you grab the first image you find…

You’ll all end up looking the same!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

I’ve always been interested in how people use Google images in the building of their websites. Now, I know how tempting it is to use the first image you come across when you’re in a hurry to get your page built.  But if you do, then one day soon, we’re all going to be using the same image.

A couple of years ago I noticed a rash of companies all local to Plymouth in the UK, all involved in the same broad business networks using one single set of ‘smiley young corporate business people’ pictures – and they didn’t know it. Incredible.

Ok, so you might think heck, that other company’s over there in Canada, so what’s the likelhood of anyone noticing we’re both in the same line of work using the same picture? Mmm, right. This is the internet we’re talking about isn’t it?

I’m not making a judgment whether or not people are paying for the images they find in Google.  That’s between you and your own conscience.  What I would say, though, is if you’re going to use things you find without paying for them you might want to consider taking a tiny moment to rename them.

The sites (above) are a quick collection of a few SEO companies who have all used the exact same image to sell their search engine marketing services.  These were all found by a quick Google image search on ‘internet marketing’ in the order I found them (except No. 1 which is the local company I saw the image in the first place):

These are just some of the businesses that have used the image without bothering to change the name.  There must be plenty of others in the same field that have changed the name.

If you’ve arrived here because of one of these links, welcome.  As you can see, you’re in good company :-)

Filed Under: marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Alexa toolbar terms and conditions: are they mad or am I?

February 7, 2010 By 2 Comments

Would YOU sign up for these terms and conditions?

“Alexa’s toolbar service collects and stores information about the web pages you view, the data you enter in online forms and search fields, and, with versions 5.0 and higher, the products you purchase online while using the toolbar service.”

Actually, I haven’t quoted exactly.  The original is ALL IN UPPER CASE WHICH, WHILE MAKING IT MORE IMPORTANT, MAKES IT HARDER TO READ AND DIGEST (since we don’t usually read capital letters).

The T&Cs also go on to say that the information collected is personally identifiable.

Unless I am completely mistaken, if you click ‘Agree’ you are giving Alexa permission to record and use any information you put in any form online and permission to build a record of your online searching and buying decisions.

On this website we’ve already seen plenty of scams exploiting the willingness of ordinary people to sign forms on which the small print committing them to several years of absurdly expensive scam ‘services’ is plainly visible.   God alone knows what we agree to on a daily basis in the ever-present ‘Terms and Conditions’ boxes we click without reading or so much as a second thought.

Is it that we are so greedy for the ‘pay-off’ that we have lost our critical faculties?  Is it that the way in which the data we give up in these transactions is used so subtly that we never make the connection between the privacy we signed away and the cold calls, the spam and the junk mail coming into our homes?

I suspect that one day a lot of us are going to really, really regret clicking all those ‘I Agree’ checkboxes.

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, WARNING!!, what do you think? Tagged With: , , ,
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