When the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump visited England earlier this year, news organizations across the globe reported that there was a deliberate campaign by British protestors to make Green Day’s 2004 hit, ‘American Idiot’, to the top of UK’s chart in that week.

Cut-to December 12, 2018. The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai was testified before the House Judiciary Committee of the US Congress.

As embarrassment of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already put the world in suspicion about data privacy, the world now had its eye over the three and a half hour long grilling session of the representative of Internet’s most powerful brand, GOOGLE.

Zoe Lofgren, who in her attempt tried to implicate that Google was politically manipulating search results with their bias, questioning the CEO, she asked, As Democratic Congresswomanwho in her attempt tried to implicate that Google was politically manipulating search results with their bias, questioning the CEO, she asked,

“Right now if you Google the word ‘Idiot’ under images, a picture of Donald Trump comes up. I just did that. How did that happen?”

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Adding to his statement he further said,

“Things like relevance, freshness, popularity and the way other people are using it, and based on that, at any given time, we try to rank and find the best search results for the query. And then when we evaluate them in external raters, and they evaluate it to objective guidelines and that’s how we make sure that the process is working.”

‘Google Bombing’. Now back to Donald Trump’s visit to the UK. When the protestors pushed for the ‘American Idiot’ track, the Reddit users created a trend on the internet where users purposely manipulated Google’s algorithm by posting articles that contain pictures of Trump and the word,’idiot’. This phenomenon is called

A Google Bomb typically takes place when a group of people collaborate to create a manipulation, a sort of conspiracy to artificially elevate a website on Google’s web search results by linking a particular keyword or phrase to the website. In this case, the word ‘idiot’, was linked to the photographs of Donald Trump. Now, the American president is not the first victim of Google Bomb.

Here are some of the examples where ‘Google Bombing’ stormed the headlines and credibility of the top search engine:-

1. Microsoft

The first ever Google Bomb took place in 1999, The player involved was none other than Microsoft. People at that time were still on dial-up connections. Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter were not visible back then. It was Microsoft’s homepage that provided the target for virtual bombers, becoming the number one result when a search for “More evil than Satan himself” was entered. The phrase is a reference to the riddle: “What is more powerful than God himself, more evil than Satan? The rich want it, the poor have it and if you eat it, you’ll die.”

Now, all the web pages that included the key phrase had a link pointing towards the Microsoft homepage, which increased its PageRank value of the Microsoft homepage in Google’s PageRank algorithm for the key phrase. 2. George Bush

Now, let’s talk about the ‘Most famous Google Bomb’ ever. George Bush another Republican President was on the receiving end. Satirical magazine HugeDisk created the first one back in September 2000, by linking an expletive with a site that sold Bush-themed products. This particular bomb was put to an end by the site’s lawyers and a cease-and-desist letter.

As he ran for a second term in office as president, a Google search for the phrase “miserable failure” took the users to Bush’s biography on the official White House website. The Bomb was eventually doused in 2007 when Google altered its indexing structure.

3. Nicholas Sarkozy

The flamboyant French President was virtually attacked by a group of dissatisfied bloggers in 2010. A French phrase, ‘Trou du cul du web’ which means, ‘The Asshole of the Internet’ was redirected to his Facebook Profile.

He took down his Facebook profile after the news broke out, as a result, the Bomb had a very short presence on the internet. It, however, questioned the credibility of Google Algorithm, all across the World.

4. Tony Blair

In 2005, the British Prime Minister was Bombed with the word, ‘liar’ for his support to Iraq invasion by George W. Bush. The campaign by some Internet activist groups were focused solely on Google.co.uk.

Blair had a pivotal military involvement in Iraq and the search for weapons of mass destruction. He has been a victim of another Bombing campaign where ‘poodle’ was used. The word referred him as ‘American President’s lapdog’.

5. Chuck Norris

Referred to as ‘Rajnikant of Hollywood‘, Chuck Norris is more famous for his memes than his acting. The internet sensation in 2008, received over 4,800,000 unique visitors.

So, you see that this piece was not only about Sundar Pichai’s Testimony, but the event gives confidence to all the stakeholders of the Internet (like all of us), who require the internet to be democratic and transparent. The monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon also need to consider the concerns which loom over Data privacy.