Google faces scrutiny over United story incident

MarketWatch examined the potential limitations of Google's search technology in light of this week's resurfacing of a 6-year-old bankrupcy story concerning United Airlines that sent the company's stock plummeting. MarketWatch posed the following question: "Could "Google" eventually come to mean stumbling accidentally and disastrously onto misleading reports and information?"
From the story:

Some analysts say the scenario with the United story shows the limitations of automated search technology- based on tools called "bots" and "scrapers" - and highlights the need for a more precise system for identifying information, especially news reports.

Ed Keating, vice president of the Software Information Industry Association, said that while Google has sufficient technology in place, "it's just an algorithm, and the algorithm did not go to journalism school."
Crawford Del Prete of the International Data Corp. said that while he believed Google's "bots" and "scrapers" are able to "capture" information in an efficient manner, " we still have a long way to go to filter out the timely and relevant from the not timely and relevant."
Google stands by its technology and says each individual media organization is responsible for keeping track of its information and must ensure and verify its accuracy and completeness independently.

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