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Web Vendor Threatens Customers to Promote Business
An online eyewear retailer from New York has pled guilty to mail fraud and to sending threatening communications to his own clients. Using pseudonyms, Vitaly Borker threatened to kill and sexually assault his customers, and his threats were described by the presiding judge as “chilling”. Mr. Borker explained in a November, 2010 interview, that his rationale for making the threats was, strangely, to promote his business, DecorMyEyes.com. Customers, upset by Mr. Borker’s threats, would describe their experiences with DecorMyEyes.com on the Internet on various other websites, thereby raising its search ranking in Google.
As a result of Mr. Borker’s conduct and notoriety, Google promptly made changes to its search algorithms such that negative feedback for a business would not have the effect of raising its search rankings.
For additional information, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/business/13borker.html?_r=2&ref=technology%20