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Search engines and editorial integrity

July 23, 2001 by JD Lasica

Is the jig up for honest search results?

This column appeared July 23, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Many of us in the new media industry have watched in despair during the past few months as several major search engines have abandoned all pretense at editorial integrity by adopting deceptive, misleading advertising practices at the expense of their users.

Finally, someone has stood up and said, Enough is enough. And now it’s time for the rest of us to join the battle as well.

Commercial Alert, a 3-year-old consumer organization in Portland, Ore., founded by Ralph Nader, filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission last week, charging that eight of the major search engines were “inserting advertisements in search engine results without clear and conspicuous disclosure that the ads are ads.” [Read more…] about Search engines and editorial integrity

Ethics debate: It’s time to move on

March 12, 1999 by JD Lasica

Electronic commerce is here to stay – deal with it

This column appeared March 12, 1999, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

The following column is based on remarks made by the author at the Online Journalism Conference held March 10, 1999, in Berkeley, co-sponsored by Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and the Annenberg School for Communication at USC. Lasica appeared on the panel “Reestablishing Credibility.”

Last year I appeared at this conference as a panelist addressing online ethics, so it was a little ironic that at the time I was employed by Microsoft.

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