Google’s Metadata Responsible for $1 Billion Loss
Google may be facing legal action for displaying an outdated news article reporting that United Airlines had filed for bankruptcy, costing United about $1 billion in losses.
The article was found under the “most viewed” section of Google on Monday and was then picked up by Google News, resulting in a panic amongst stockholders. United’s stock reportedly dropped from $12 a share to a devastating $3 a share before trading was eventually halted.
It was reported that one reader of the South Florida Sun Sentinel‘s website viewed the 2002 article on United’s bankruptcy. Apparently, that single visit somehow caused it to be bumped into the “Popular Stories” of the Sentinel’s Business section. According to press reports, at approximately 1:30 a.m., the Google robot spotted the link, and because it had no 2002 dateline, mistakenly placed it on its news pages.
A Florida investment firm then posted the archaic article on the Bloomberg financial information service, a website visited by thousands of web users.
The Sentinel and Google are now pointing fingers as to who is to blame for this billion dollar debacle. Google’s spokesperson Gabriel Stricker was reported as saying that, “In the same way that the reader was unable to determine the original date, our search algorithm was similarly misled by that date.”
The Tribune, owner of the Sentinel has stated that the readers should have known the difference between an old article and a new one because the information in the article alone was outdated. They have also publicly stated that the Googlebot continues to misclassify new stories, which can be an enormously costly mistake.
Interestingly, as investors began to dump their stocks, Google’s algorithm came into play again. It was reported by the Times Online that the “automated trading programs were applied to the trading of shares based on market-moving information trawled from the internet.” According to a recent study by the Aite Group, some 30% of all equity trading volume was handled by search engine algorithms.
Now, as United looks for a way to regain confidence in its investors, it is likely that they will consider taking legal action against Google or the Tribune.
