Google Bans Google January 31, 2009

You really need to think about how your code will work when it fails.  I turned on my computer this morning to do some quick research to discover an alarming message in my search results, “This site may harm your computer.”  And every search I ran said the same thing.  Worse still every attempt to click through was halted by Google.  Was it a general warning of the collapse of the Internet, nope just a stupid programming error.  To proove it I could even show that Google doesn’t trust Google.

When I searched on Google they were kind enough to warn me that their sites could be harmful too.  Odds are that this was a general failure in their StopBadware.org technology, but the real problem is that someone simply didn’t cover for every possible error.  But that’s not the real loss.

Back in the late ’90′s I had learned how seriously Intel had taken an error in one of their chips.  While they discovered the error quickly and resolved the problem even faster, they realized the real loss was loss of confidence.  Intel felt that their reputation had been set back several years from this error.

Being a source for information, can Google afford errors like this?  Saturday mornings at 9:00 is probably one of the peak times for the average individual to be surfing the net.  Seeing warning message for every possible site will erode confidence and may move people to other sources. 

An hour later and still a warning message.  Google – “This error may have harm your reputation.”