My little investigation about Google.by
Google.by is owned by unknown cybersquatters (as it appears, they are most probably related to a Minsk web studio ActiveMedia). I first wrote about it in July 2003 [1]. At first, they had a graphical interface totally different from Google and their own database, which appeared to be just a tiny index of several thousand Belarusian web pages. The engine was essentially a bug-ridden PHP script. When I tried to use google.by very often it was generating errors instead of showing search results. At one point in 2003 or 2004 it stopped working all together, showing this error message
“Can’t open template file ‘/usr/local/mnogosearch/etc/search.htm’”
for any search I’ve tried, for several months. And then suddenly in late 2004 or early 2005 the site was re-designed. The cybersquatters stole Google’s Belarusian-language page design and pasted Google Ads on the right side. (I’m curious how they could register their Google AdWords account to show ads on such a page?)
As far as I understand, many people were fooled into thinking that this is an authentic Google page.
Today even more bizarre thing happened. A respected IT magazine eWeek (!) was also deceived by the outer appearance and the domain name and ran this article:
Ads Reach Google’s Front Page:
Advertisements now appear on the home page of a Google Inc. Internet search engine, thus ending the company’s nearly decade-long tradition of an ad-free front page.
They are not flashy, “graphical doodads and popping up all over,” as Google promised in late December.
Rather, Google’s Web site in Belarusian, has the more sedate approach of three sponsored links taking up an inch-wide column of the right-hand side of the Web browser.
This is a sign of the new era for Google, one in which a portion of its once-pristine front page will be sold to advertisers a pixel at a time, as Internet search competitors Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.’s MSN now do.
What can I say? “LOL”? Or, kudos to the cybersquatters for fooling eWeek journalists. ;)
Update: Here’s a .GIF snapshot of the original and fake Google screens put together. The Belarusian pirates don’t seem to speak good Belarusian, making pretty bad mistakes such as spelling інтернэце instead of інтэрнэце.
Update-2: “eWeek” promptly acknowledges the mistake, removes the above-metioned article and publishes a nice follow-up instead: Google Investigates Fake Site.
January 4th, 2006 at 2:04 am
http://www.br23.net/en/wp-content/fake_google.gif
January 4th, 2006 at 5:59 am
The article doesn’t seem to be there anymore - maybe they read your blog. :)
January 4th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
>>The article doesn’t seem to be there anymore - maybe they read your blog.
More probable that Google.com read that article and answered to eweek forcing them to take off that article.
January 4th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Stolik: there’s a cool Ukrainian-American blogger Alex Moskalyuk who runs several English-language and Russian-language blogs. As soon as he learned about the problem, he wrote an e-mail to eWeek journalist, and then the article was taken down.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alexmoskalyuk/432716.html
January 4th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Look at this article:
Google taken over in Belarus. Not surprising really
January 4th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Thanks for the link, ambiont!
And those cyber squatters are not making that much money, actully. I wrote to ActiveMedia.by and they said it costs $50 per week for one ad spot, so their maximum capacity is $150 per week, or maximum $600 per month… Pretty ridiculous. They claimed they get 10,000 visitors per day. That sounds a bit exaggerated too. Why would someone type in and bookmark google.by, if they could go to google.com directly (a well-known address as opposed to this domain name)?
January 4th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Wow, a nice investigation there you’ve done! I used their site once or twice but never imagined they were pirates. How come Google shut their eyes to this issue?
January 4th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
lukeii: a copy of the eWeek article by Ben Charny can be viewed on Yahoo!News
* http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060103/tc_zd/168330
January 4th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
endrus: Supposedly, ActiveMedia asked their permission and Google answered that they don’t care about Google.by domain because they are not planning to open an office in Belarus, and because Belarus citizens consitute less than 1% of all their visitors (and probably 0.0…01% of the revenues). That’s what ActiveMedia says, at least.
January 4th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Hmmm do wonder about those spelling mistakes… I mean… when I switch From Russian to Belarusian language input, э also changes to e. But then again, what do I know? I dont speak neither language!
$600 a month isn’t that bad :) It’s good to see that there are some nice cybersquatters out there. 99% of the other typo-ed site names (try gooogle.com or google.co for example) are riddled with spam, spyware, ads virusses, porn and more.
January 4th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
> when I switch From Russian to Belarusian language input э also changes to e.
The mistake is somewhat more fundamental, and relates to our phonetics. There’s a hard “t” (т) in Belarusian, but there’s no soft palatalized “t’” (ть) in Belarusian. It turns into c’ (ць).
So if a Slavic word exists in Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian and it has a soft “t’”, in Belarusian it would be most probably spelled and pronounced with a soft “c’” sound.
So in this case, they essentially wrote “inCIernet” instead of “internet”, which I find pretty damn funny.
January 4th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
P.S. Another update:
eWeek promptly acknowledges the mistake and publishes a nice follow-up: Google Investigates Fake Site
January 5th, 2006 at 2:16 am
Similar discussion at another blog:
* http://battellemedia.com/archives/002183.php
January 5th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Ahh.. I see now. Thanks for your explanation :)
January 7th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
thank you for finally forcing me to look up “kudos”.
on a completely unrelated topic: isn’t it awesome that it’s you who did vesna’s website!
cheers:)
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