Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman said other clues would have made it clear to a human reader that the story was old, including a reference to UAL’s 97-cent share price (it was trading around $12 on Monday) and comments from readers further down the page that were posted in 2002.
“It appears that no one who passed this story along actually bothered to read the story itself,” he said.
“Despite the company’s earlier request and the confusion caused by Googlebot and Google News earlier this week, we believe that Googlebot continues to misclassify stories,” Tribune said.
What a major screw-up for Google, but what an opportunity for those who recognized it.
Just goes to show there’s more than enough negligence and stupidity to go around in financial management and reporting circles.
“…and, seeing there was no 2002 dateline, indexed the article for inclusion on its news pages.”
Well, if a high school researcher had done this in a term project (it is about that speed) I’d expect a C grade. Legally, I don’t see any tort, as the search engine didn’t have a contract with any of the shareholders to provide accurate data. Caveat emptor, especially for free goods. You might just get for what you pay.