Grist Magazine plucks from the pages of USA Today the story of how GM is using a paid search result as a rebuttal to
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Fighting back, GM has bought a paid-search link on Google.com that shows up whenever the name of the movie or one its stars is typed into the search engine. The blog item says the EV1 was a commercial flop and that its engineering advances are being incorporated into GM's next wave of hybrid and other advanced vehicles.
That got me thinking... has this tactic of rebuttal via prominently positioned Sponsored Links (at the top of the results, not sidebar links) reached the political sphere yet? To the laboratory - it's time to experiment!
Put on your goggles and go Google...
George Bush? Nothing.
Dick Cheney? Nothing.
Hillary Clinton? Nothing.
John Kerry? Nothing.
But wait... Google Al Gore? The highlighted Sponsored Link above the results is for a YouTube video bashing An Inconvenient Truth, brought to us by... well, you can go see for yourself.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Would you call this an instance of "guerilla Google campaigning"? How common will it become?
Update [2006-7-29 2:42:25 by The 40oz Funk]:
Um...
Karl Rove (correct spelling)... Nothing up top (NYTimes.com link only on sidebar)
Carl Rove (incorrect spelling)... Up top, a Sponsored Link for NYTimes.com:
NYTimes.com presents the latest news on the political adviser