A bunch of people noticed a very odd post on the google blog tonight that suggested they were cancelling their click-to-call service (see below, captured by John Resig). Just a month ago Google expanded the click-to-call program into the UK.
The post was at googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/google-click-to-call-project-cancelled.html, although it has been removed now. Even though the blog post was quickly taken down, a number of people saw it on the blog or in their RSS readers. The message itself was certainly suspicious as it contains numerous spelling and grammatical errors as well as the curious last sentence saying that the “message has been translated using Google language tools.”
So the real story here is that the Google blog has been hacked. This is a bit of an embarrassment, although it is not nearly as bad as when Google deleted the blog accidentally in March of this year.
Rumour is true. There is a chinese proverb that says ” a tree would not shakes by itself, if the wind does not start blowing “….
Good call though, GOO
“The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d’oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user.”
Hahaha. I wonder if someone got fired for this one.
I am not surprised (if this information is true), what is interesting is that the majors totally elude the notion of a web call centre when they present pay per call; like Google and eBay who have announced partnerships.
Click to call is not new, it’s already being offered by companies such as Ingenio or eStara, but in mixed mode, meaning that they mainly use traditional telephony, and little VOIP. Setting up advertising campaigns in Pay Per call makes using a cheap and VOIP web call centre indispensable.
Traditional call centres are reserved to large companies, because of their technical and human infrastructure costs, and by their centralisation. It is unthinkable that e-commerce sites or SME’s could equip themselves with them.
Contrarily to cost per click billed advertising where the web-user surfs onto a website without human assistance, only guided by hypertext links, the call by “click to call” goes directly to agents. From then you can’t imagine making those customers who clicked on the « click to call » button at the same time wait.
In the same way, agents don’t need to be recruited and trained anymore, and calls must be distributed to existing company employees who have the technical and commercial knowledge.
LOL, the owners of the largest blogging system in the world ; Blogger, don’t even know how to run their own blog. Now that’s irony.
If only goodle could take some more photos of how they get hacked. They we could get proof that they are spam. And that they are the greatest hackors of us all. Yo, they pwn you and you just get hijacked by the traffick and CPMs on tha shit. Please. Makes your own riginality already
The most ironic element? Just a day earlier they were posting “Our security stance“.
Some hacker might have found the whole “responsible disclosure” on their linked security page a tad condescending?
This is an odd posting. It certainly looks fake.
I hate to start a rumor, but it could’ve very well been hacked by a competing click to call developer. Why else would someone go to all the trouble?
Its kinda funny.
It might have been hacked, but has anybody considered the possibility that Chad Hurley is behind this? We know he’s been at Google HQ and has been given full access to everything at Google (Larry and Sergey’s offices, the PageRank algorithm and even the supersecret data centers). There are even rumors Marissa Mayer went out on a date with him to seal the YouTube deal. Perhaps after a wild, drunk party on the Google 747 party plane, an inebriated Chad decided to have some fun with the Google blog?
It seems to be fake, here’s my reasons:
1. These kind of announcements usually goes into Press Release first, not on the blog.
2. As you noted, the last line of the post, “message has been translated using Google language tools”.
3. Google not only deleted the post from the blog, Google’s Blog Search and Google Reader as well. (You can still find it on BlogLines though.)
4.The poster’s name…Maximal? Unusual Google Blog poster.
how about a disgruntled google employee (if there is something like that)..?
The most important is the power that hakers do.
Best. Rodo.
Google is entering into the stormy earnings season and everybody is getting nervous: trends are against its valuation and cofounders are angry: toys are not making money:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blo.....0012.0.jpg
http://sufiy.blogspot.com/
Regards,
How does this incident play in regards to Jonathan’s Schwartz’s open letter to the SEC that blogs should be an avenue, just like press releases and conference calls, to break news?
Om Malik from Giga OM reports this as a hoax..
http://voip.gigaom.com/2006/10.....lled-hoax/
official update from google… http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....html#links
About that fake post
10/08/2006 01:52:00 PM
Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team
A bug in Blogger enabled an unauthorized user to make a fake post on the Google Blog last night, claiming that we’ve discontinued our AdWords click-to-call test. The bug was fixed quickly and the post removed. As for the click-to-call test, it is progressing on schedule, and we’re pleased with the results thus far.
JP Morgan writes
> I hate to start a rumor, but it could’ve very well been
> hacked by a competing click to call developer. Why else
> would someone go to all the trouble?
Hacker honor? Google in a previous post on security boasted how they were able to defeat the “bad guys”…
dude - you missed the point. security. security. security. or lack thereof. the deletion of the blog is irrelevant. someone being able to hack into my blogger and find unpublished posts, post stuff in my name, possibly gain greater access to my personal data, by which to further compromise my email, etc., and then everything in my email, which will have the goods on hundreds of people/companies/etc. wow.
I’ll stick to wordpress, thank you.
The bug that was used to hack Google’s blog is not a Blogger specific bug, it is a bug in RSS and MetaWeblogAPI. All blogging platforms that support the two are vulnerable including Blogger (now fixed), Wordpress, and Typepad. Currently no details on how the bug works have been made public and there are no official patches for it.
Just reading it you can tell it’s fake. Was it ‘hacked’ or was it a disgruntled employee. Better for Google to say it was hacked than done by someone one the inside who grew to hate their job.
Sounds like a Chinese hacker who did not have a good command of english. He/she probably typed in the announcement in Chinese into the Google translator and simply copy and pasted the english translation (including the disclaimer) straight into what ever hacking program he used. . .
that is shame for google, if the blog is hosted on their servers…
hey how do u post things on google please tell me