Google and their shameful blogspot service
This was originally posted on my other blog at the beginning of June 2011
I’ll start by mentioning that I don’t hate google I have an Android phone (The Google Nexus S in fact), I have a Google Apps account for this very domain, I used to search google using Netscape Navigator on Mac OS 8 and Windows 95 lots of history, despite everything below I cannot be without them.
I am also aware that I am 1 of only 6.7 billion people on this planet, there are people that are frankly better/richer/ wiser/you get it, right? What I’m saying is that despite all that support I have offered over the years I am completely aware that no one at google likely knows or cares about me (I should probably drop the likely too).
So yes, I guess the best place to start is me. Not going into too much depth, I am 28 Married to my childhood sweetheart, we have one son Joshua who turned 2 in March. I work, I have a house….you get the picture, super dedicated family man would die to protect that closest too me. Nothing special.
What’s my problem with google? I shall explain with the power of a Uniform Resource Locator!! (URL)
http://leewilcock.blogspot.com
Pretty extreme right? Believe me it’s taken a painful year I can get to the point of it being (on a weird level) a joke. See, if you’re not a moron you will have figured out that the page linked above is in fact apparently ME advocating Paedophilia, please note THAT I FUCKING WELL DO NOT!!
What really really really upset me is that who ever set it up had taken a picture of Joshua and I last summer from my facebook and put it on there, one thing to pin a page like that on me another to involve my child! It got worse still because Joshua’s Nursery called my wife and started asking questions about it stating that it’s only because we know them so well that they called us before calling social services! So I’ll say it now This blog could have caused my child to be taken off me! Didn’t stop the embarrassment next time I picked him up.
I also fear that if I wanted to that i would be unable to be successful in moving jobs. It’s common practise for employers to have a google for new employees. Something like this would likely cause a problem or two!
So why is it still there a YEAR after it was created?
Figured it out yet? Go have a coffee…..see if you can figure it out then.
See that page existed a month or so before I found it (yes yes I googled my name, I blame Russell Brand!!) by then it had already done likely irreparable damage. The caches dotted around the internet are unforgiving, meaning that because this bile was aloud to be written on a very high ranking site I’m never guaranteed to be able to get rid of it fully.
So what have I done about it? well first step was to go to the support pages for blogspot. There is a lot of messages there that state that anyone can write anything and google are very picky about what they will get rid of. Thankfully I found this:
Oh well this is a little different, I used to be able to click “Report Abuse” at the top of the page which after jumping through a few loops would take me to a page where I could upload a picture of my driving licence and some notes explaining why I was reporting for imitation only now I am presented with the following page (may be temporary):
(EDIT: found the link I used to use, Still doesn’t work in the UK when I click it, I get the same screen as above)
What I had done previously is explained above. I have submitted about 20 of these (at least one a month until march this year when I figured what’s the point!!)
You’ll probably have noticed that there is a link to a twitter account on there too. Superbly Twitter removed the offending account and the one setup too argue against it. Within 24 hours of me reporting it. I did have to scramble to find a site that let me fax stuff too them but it worked! (see the date? 7/7/10)
When it became obvious that Google where doing nothing about it. I decided in rage that I would just go to the police. 2 reasons for this 1st is that I wanted the page gone! and 2nd is that I genuinely feared some loony would find it and burn my house down or something. So I did I contacted the police in August last year the woman at Humberside police was friendly and took some information and I waited for a call back. I was disappointed. I was told that I needed to contact the owner of the site to have them take it down….great…
In the mean time I submitted posts to the google help forums (apparently on 2 different accounts)
Old gmail account
And my Google Apps account
I thought the guys there would perhaps put some weight behind things and have them fixed for me….no.
I tried submitting info to the BBC Watchdog show (consumer advise/rights program) As yet no response.
I tried to hijack the account it was created on…stupid I know but I was angry and desperate.
I’ve spoken to my local citizens advise bureau…couldn’t help.
I even got to the point of thinking, sue them, times are hard and I figured I had been wronged by one of the biggest companies on the planet why not go after them for a few grand?
I had seen an article about a local Italian businessman who had a fake Facebook page made about him, who ever made it had made him out to be a womaniser like Silvio Berlusconi, Unlike this guy however I have no money!! I also wouldn’t know where to start. I did get to the point though of ringing a few local solicitors for advise…none of them wanted to know.
I then thought about going to the press. I sent a message to “The Sun” a very popular tabloid in the UK. I never heard anything, so I rang my local paper “The Hull Daily Mail” the lady I spoke too seemed positive that she could help and would ring me back the following week, that was 6 weeks ago, written off as a bad job.
So here I am. Resorting to documenting this using poor spelling and grammar and a clunky writing style in a last ditch effort to get it fixed. I do hate to sound like a money greedy bastard but I still honestly believe I deserve compensating and an apology.
As for who put it there? My life on the internet has been a long one and while I have never been a great troll (dedication and effort something I am not great at) I’ve been known to “mix” with people who do. The forum I run was full of them at one point (there are only about 6 posters there now) they did a lot of trolling at a site called “chavscum” a long time ago and I can only think that someone there could have targeted me by running the site these folk came to for refuge. Would be a bit like blaming “moot” for creating anonymous and sending the hivemind out to attack the rest of the internet. He runs the site not the people. Speculation is all that is though and the only reason for that is how out of date the information on my job is. (I haven’t worked on the IT helpdesk at a hospital for over 4 years now), If I honestly had a clue or knew I’d upset someone I would have attempted to apologise long before now and attempted that way to have this thing gone.
I feel helpless however and I really do not know where to turn.
