Ming Sees Huhne's Google Bid and Raises Him
James F an eagle-eyed co-conspirator of Guido's, points out that the story about Huhne buying adverts on Google for search results for his rival's names, obviously upset the Mingers. Look what they have done:Search for Chris Huhne and you find Ming above him! They will have had to pay more than the Huhney Monster for the privilege.
Ming bidding here...
UPDATE : Mingers seem determined to boost Google's profits. Guess what you get when you search for "David Cameron"?
31 comments:
I fundamentally fail to see the point of this. If someone Googles "Ming Campbell" they're not going to think - "but woah! Google has offered me Chris Huhne instead, what a great idea!"
Suggest you write a strongly worded letter of compplaint.
Maybe its just a bit of fun?
It may well be a bit of fun...
...but I still don't see the point :)
Notice he's not that bothered about Mr Blair...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=tony+blair&meta=
Each time you click on one of those links, Google charges their client something like 50p. Just thought I'd mention that.
time to write little loop script and hit that links continually me thinks!
Let's get clicking then....
'I know real liberals, Mr Cameron,
and you are no liberal'
... cheeky old git!
As a real liberal, I fear that it is Ming who is not the real liberal
The cost google charge depend upon the word "Luxury Car" will cost quite a lot. I think we are safe to assume that "David Cameron" is dirt cheap.
For anyone interested, I have just written a little script that will hit the link over and over again with no interaction.... how evil!
Sorry to disappoint dizzy, but it is certain that Google's contract will cover circumstances where somebody hits it again and again from one machine (would be so widely used as commercial sabotage otherwise for a start), so your plan is pretty pointless.
What I want to know is how a Minger led LibDem party is going to close Guantanamo Bay exactly. I can really see the USA quaking in their boots at the thought of getting on the wrong side of a left leaning 3rd party in British politics, they're not even the opposition for gods sake.
Still I suppose that's always been the LibDems great strength, the ability to promise what they know they can't deliver because they also know that they will never be in the position to actually be required to deliver it.
Was there anything in what Ming said about his number of MP backers dwafing those of Huhne?
Ming has 32 MPs backing him. Huhne about 10 MPs.
On MEPs, Ming has 8. Chris has 3.
I'm bored of the Lib Dems, Guido.
Not got any other gossip and slander about other MPs and ministers?
@henry,durham - you leave Sarah Teather out of it!
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Sorry to disappoint dizzy, but it is certain that Google's contract will cover circumstances where somebody hits it again and again from one machine (would be so widely used as commercial sabotage otherwise for a start), so your plan is pretty pointless.
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Sorry to disappoint you Anon, but for a start pretty much every large commercial business uses NAT and will present the same external facing IP to sites such as Google. Thus a company with say 400 people could quite legitimately hit the same link in a day and it will appear to come from just "one machine". Obviously that is a rather notionally "one machine" as it's far more likely to be a router than a machine. That doesn't of course include the ability to spoof out source addresses and make it look like you're coming from somewhere else.
As for the comment about things being widely used for commercial sabotage and thusit's not likely to be a realistic option, that is what is commonly known in the IT world as "security by obscurity" and its nonsense, one look at Microsoft is evidence enough of that.
As it happens though Google do try to protect the sponsored links by generating a session ID for each search hit that throws them up, that session id is what I scripted to grab. Now, using a time algorithm to grab that session id and hit the link randomly, coupled with a randomly spoofed source address makes what I said decidely not pointless.
Guido: apologies for the overt geekyness of this comment post.
@dizzy - hmm reminds me of a story told to me by a transport house staffer on the sabotage team set up by Labour in the early eighties to undermine the nascent SDP. One of the wheezes was apparently to mail wrapped up bricks to the SDP's freepost address in the hope they would end up picking up the tab with the post office. Desparate times, etc. Not sure if it worked...
I should clarify, I've not actually run the script other than to proof of concept it. I wrote it out of boredom.
'I know real liberals, Mr Cameron,
and you are no liberal'
Can't recall now, who said the original quote to whom? ('I knew Jack Kennedy, Mr President,
and you are no Jack Kennedy!' Someone to Bush? Or Clinton?)
And BTW, how do the liberals get to field eleven MEPs? Is there a set proportion of every single parliamentary party sitting in Strasbourg or wherever it is this week?
Wmbyrd - It was Bentsen to Quayle in the VP debate prior to the '92 Presidential election.
Well Imogen, Ming is obviously reading. He now appears above Blair and Brown. Not Charles kennedy, Huhne's got that one all to himself.
guido your site is considered reasonable political goss. But your shameless afiliation with huhne and more generally your (wholly unwarranted) interest in the lib dems is just pathetic. How can you take yourself seriously as a political blog if you devote so much time to impotent causes.
Thanks for name check - I'm sure the world will benefit from seeing my son covered in Yogurt. Prompted me to look about your site a bit more and ended up listening to Featherstone pub-cast. Have you missed a journalistic trick or am I just over-interpreting.
croydonian - it was Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle but it was during a VP debate in 1988. Bentsen was Dukakis' running mate.
Great debate line but didn't exactly turn the election did it.
"I know real liberals, Mr Cameron, and let me tell you - you are no liberal.
In his first few weeks, Mr Cameron has shown in his actions precisely which aspects of Mr Blair’s leadership he wishes most to emulate.
Insubstantial policy statements, empty pledges, the obsession with media spin."
Insubstantial policy? Empty pledges? Sounds like Cameron could be a Liberal after all. All he needs is to put out a Focus leaflet complaining about dog shit on pavements and then another claiming credit when the Council cleans it up.
Anonymous - I'm not quite sure how you ascertain Guido's "shameless affiliation with Huhne." Certainly not from the contents of this blog, which over the past week has (1) Attempted to flam-up the Michael Crick non-story over Huhne's euro-expenses (2) Claimed that Huhne's supporters were operating a betting racket in order to artificially inflate his odds, and (3) Accused his supporters of distorting the world's biggest search engine.
If that's a shameless affiliation, then I'm a Blairite!
Presumably there is a limit on expenses, and this looks like a pretty uncontrollable expense?
I think you normally pay in advance for Google AdWords and even if you are given credit, you can place alimit on what you want to spend.
Once your credits run out, the ad simply disappears.
You can set a daily budget for Adwords.
Martin
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