Google buys Ad to Explain Origin of Offensive Michelle Obama Image

An offensive image of the First Lady Michelle Obama has been doing the rounds lately on Google’s search index. Since it has been ranking highly on search pages, Google is buying ads left and right to explain the appearance of this picture on its search index.

As per reports last week, Google had removed the offensive image of the First Lady as the website which was hosting the image had violated the company’s guidelines and was selling malware to its visitors. But the same image could be viewed through other sites which were still not looking at the rules.

There is an ad on the Google site termed ‘Offensive Search Results’ which can lead searchers to http://www.google.com/resultsinfo.html.; this site is used by the company to apologize to users who end up having an unpleasant search experience with Google. The page also explains in detail the company’s policy, rules and regulations regarding offensive content.

It is mentioned on this site that disturbing or offensive content that may sometimes be displayed on search results comes out of the internet or innocuous queries but the views expressed or images displayed are in no way endorsed by the company.

Google representatives reported that the results displayed by the search engine are a direct reflection of the content that is present on the internet. Site ranks are performed in Google by using complex mathematical algorithms which is in turn based on many factors. Hence, the ideals and preferences of the company’s staff cannot have any impact of the results thrown up on the Search page.

Earlier in 2006, Google was caught up in a similar situation when George Bush’s page ranked first for the search query ‘miserable failure.’ The company finally changed its algorithmic ranking system to exclude this search item. But nothing so far has been done to do the same for the offensive search result on the First Lady.

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