Where can I get a copy of this software?

Or is this most likely a case of a journalist / police not understanding what he actually did.

What if Google added a feature to the sitemaps program or somewhere that allows websites to select which keywords they DON'T want to show up for

Josh, that's a VERY interesting idea. After all, if I believe that my website isn't relevant for people searching for [britney spears breasts] then it surely shouldn't appear – even if that content appears on my site somewhere. And search engine results are all about relevance.

We can already request search engines not to index our content, and we can tell search engines not to follow links from our site, so why not let us tell them to ignore certain terms for our site?

That'd be a great way to suppress bad PR.. thus I don't see them doing this.

like if I were magsforless.com I could say don't rank me for "magsforless scam" or "ripoff"

I concur that Gazeta Wyborcza is the biggest quality newspaper in Poland, and their reporters do a decent job usually. This means that the whole thing must have happened.

Unfortunately: no technical details or hints whatsoever. Plus Google isn't explicitly mentioned anywhere in the article, so it could have been some other search engine (including local ones, more prone to bombing).

Tony, whenever we discuss a feature like that (and we have several times), we quickly get to the point that Ryan made.

P.S. http://www.google.pl/search?hl=pl&q=kutas&lr=lang_pl does not return any sort of "prezydent.pl" page for me. It could have been a temporary thing.

> I concur that Gazeta Wyborcza
> is the biggest quality newspaper in Poland

And so is Wikipedia :)

> so it could have been
> some other search engine

But it wasn't. You can find post in Polish forums and blogs from couple of months ago talking about that and telling others to type this words into Google.

Ryan and Matt, you're absolutely right! How could I not have thought about that? Perhaps I'm just too honest... ;-)

But what could be a real use-case for the "magsforless scam" example? If I enter "magsforless scam", it seems I want to go to some watch site criticizing magsforless, not magsforless.com itself anyway (because I cannot expect them to talk about the scam openly). Perhaps hiding information that does indeed exist on the site is a better use case, but Google does respect robots.txt if you want to do that, right...

yeah, maybe magsforless was a bad example...

still a scam though!

Good point Phillip. Why would Google want to rank magsforless for "magsforless scam". How relevant would that be considering magsforless is not trying to rank for "magsforless scam". Thus other websites link to magsforless using the anchor text "magsforless scam" would be essentially a Google bomb. I think the option should be considered for Google Webmaster Tools.

Is it a crime to call your president a prick? 3 years seems very harsh.

Matt, it's probably not Google but Polish search engine NetSprint – http://www.netsprint.pl/serwis/search?q=kutas – prezydent.pl is 7th result.

Peter – it was Google. Here are just couple of blogs/forum talking about this in February of 2007:

http://forum.piwko.pl/viewtopic.php?p=117187
http://www.forum.fokuspace.com/viewtopic.php?t=767
http://forum.bodyzone.pl/-vp53723.html
http://nenros.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/niech-ktos-mi-wytlumaczy/
http://www.321gory.pl/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?=&p=101725
http://www.forumowisko.pl/index.php?showtopic=27483&mode=threaded
http://forum.podrywacze.pl/viewtopic.php?=&p=49126

Of course you could find much more posts, and all of them are talking about Google.

it was google, but in fact this phrase is still available in other polish search engines like netsprint [a real shit btw, etc]. it's just strange that the gay is arrested because google can't cope with spam.... freedom of speech rules in poland as you can see.

Also "Super Express" (big Polish tabloid) in its article from March 2007 is talking about Google – http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,53600,4005056.html

> the gay is arrested because google can't cope with spam....

You meant "guy", right? :] He isn't arrested because of Google, but because he announced, using Google, that our president is a cock. Had he done this using paper, instead of Google, the result would be the same.

Ultimately he was arrested because we have really strange law about "respecting" head of the state, that invalidates our other freedom of speech laws, and because our current government is full of strange people, that started to use this law, which was totally forgotten before.

Ludwik, does this law also disallow to ridicule the heads of other states? 'Cause Germany's chancellor was depicted in a weird manner in some Polish magazine, I think.

Not safe for work (unlinked/ line breaks added):
theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/06/
27/js29w_merkel_narrowweb__300x403,2.jpg

Anyway, IMO freedom of speech is exactly saying these things to a president (and printing these kind of covers).

Yes, it does – couple of years ago there was a famous case when a journalist (and a former spokesmen of our communistic government – not a nice figure, BTW) was being prosecuted for insulting pope John Paul II in his editorial. It was possible exactly because pope is a head of Vatican state.
This was the only case of using this crazy law before the Kaczynski Brothers government I know of. Poles was always crazy when it came to "their" pope so it wasn't even that surprising. But now they even arrested a homeless man for insulting Lech Kaczynski on a street, while being drunk (and no – Kaczynski wasn't there, Hubert S., now famous, was just talking to himself).
And the thing is the Kaczynskis goverement is certainly dangerous to the development of our young democracy, but the freedom of speech in private media is still intact and strong in Poland, so this strange law isn't part of a bigger trend, but just some strange oddity.

And why nobody is using this law against journalists, who are showing photoshoped picture of Angela Merkel with naked breast? I think primary because, as I said, this law was dead. Now they started using it, but not automatically, but only when there is a political will to do so (that's even worse, I know). So they are only using it when it comes to a pope (electorate loves him...) or their own goverement. There is no will to protect head of German state, because Kaczynski, who like every right-wing populist needs an enemy, likes to make every so often mild anti-German remarks himself (thought he seems to like Angela Merkel).
And this particular case is more complicated, because the picture is symbolic, and it wouldn't be easy to prove that this picture is insulting. When you have someone who is using vulgar world for "penis" to describe a president you don't have to prove much. In the Merkel's case she was symbolically shown as a mother (the title says "The step-mother of Europe") and there is a long tradition of showing a mother breastfeeding. Of course the magazine did this just to show a naked breast and cause some controversy and bring attention.
BTW I find hilarious that a cover of political magazine you can find in every Polish office is labeled NSFW on internet forum.

I think "nsfw" is always about context (or lack thereof)... as your boss might peek over your shoulder from afar and not see what that pic is all about... is it fine art, political, ... :)

PS: The story also was mentioned in Germany's Spiegel.de now, arguably our biggest online news mag here...

I would repeat what the dude is doing as well, because the Kaczynski brothers are bunch of *kutas*......and since i'm in a different country all they can do is sit and spin hehehe

> He isn't arrested because of Google, but
> because he announced, using Google,
> that our president is a cock. Had he done
> this using paper, instead of Google, the
> result would be the same.

I hope if this guy ever manages to get this case before the European Court of Human Rights they will see it his way.

There was some coverage of this case in US main-stream media, after GB article. For example this text from Routers – http://www.google.com/search?q=%22linking+president+to+penis+may+put+Pole+in+prison%22

I found another "googlebomb" related to `kutas` – this time in Firefox Suggestions: http://www.siadlak.eu/2007/google-doesnt-like-iasoftware/