Vinn
12-07-2010, 03:53 PM
попал в New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes&pagewanted=all) и все порталы
This weekend's best story comes courtesy of the New York Times, whose Sunday business section features the jaw-dropping story of Vitaly Borker, a resident of Sheepshead Bay, and his online eyeglass store DecorMyEyes. What makes Borker special is his blatant disregard for both the law and his customers. Every time someone is unhappy with their order, Borker threatens the customer and refuses to refund their money without a protracted battle. As a result, Borker's business does better. Wait, what? As usual, Google is to blame.
Borker is a total scam artist who takes online orders for designer eyewear then buys the product from eBay and has it shipped to his customer. Sometimes the order is wrong, often it is counterfeit. But Borker has realized that the more people complain about him on blogs or consumer advocacy websites, the higher his website appears in Google searches for specific brand names.
When he started to realize that any press is good press when it comes to online business, he amped up the bad guy routine. "Listen, bitch," he told one nagging, unhappy customer. "I know your address. I'm one bridge over," he went on. "Then, she said, he threatened to find her and commit an act of sexual violence too graphic to describe in a newspaper."
Later, he sent the woman a photo of her apartment building using Google Earth. "Do the right thing and everyone goes away. I AM WATCHING YOU!"
He even brags online about his master plan:
"Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com," the post began. "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement."
"I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven."
Google, predictably, wants to stay as far from this story as possible, refusing to give any concrete answers when it comes to whether the site can differentiate between negative attention online and positive attention when it comes to ranking search results.
MasterCard, eBay and Citigroup, meanwhile, were all strong-armed by reporters and angry customers into taking action against Borker.
Still, he's relentless. He even agreed to be interviewed for the article, making for stellar scenes that sound like something out of a Sacha Baron Cohen skit. At his home in Brooklyn, Borker walks the Times reporter through his game:
"Look," he says, grabbing an iPad off a small table. He types "Christian Audigier," the name of a French designer, and "glasses" into Google. DecorMyEyes pops up high on the first page.
"Why am I there?" he asks, sounding both peeved and amazed. "I don't belong there. I actually outrank the designer's own Web site."
And on top of it all, he's a ham, constantly dreaming up new ways to get bad press:
When online fury about DecorMyEyes drops off, he dreams up new ways to stoke it. He briefly considered fabricating a story that Tony Russo had committed a murder -- where he would have posted this story he doesn't say -- which he then planned to link anonymously to Get Satisfaction.
Online we call this guy a troll. In a newspaper, we call this story a gem
такого бравого парня однако арестовали:
An online merchant who allegedly terrorized his customers in an effort to boost his online search ranking was arrested and charged with mail fraud and wire fraud on Monday.
Vitaly Borker, 34, launched a "campaign of intimidation" on one customer, Clarabelle Rodriguez, who told her story to the New York Times' David Segal after authorities were not interested in helping her.
When Rodriguez tried to return a pair of glasses she bought at Borker's eyeglasses site, DecorMyEyes.com, Borker threatened to sexually assault her and sent her a photo of the front of her house. "I know your address. I'm one bridge over," he told her, according to Rodriguez.
The feds' complaint against Borker shows he terrified other customers in a series of outrageously horrific emails and phone calls since 2007. He's accused of sending an email to one dissatisfied customer's work colleagues claiming that the customer was gay and involved in selling drugs. He allegedly told another customer "I know where you live," called her a "cheap Jew" and threatened to rape her. He urged another customer to "Please drop dead" in an obscenity-laden email.
But when Rodriguez and many other traumatized customers complained online, Borker gloated that they were only making him more money. Borker told the Times that the customer complaints boosted his ranking on Google, since the site's search algorithm could not distinguish between positive and negative reviews.
According to the complaint against him, more than 200 of his customers have filed complaints with authorities. "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement," Borker posted on one site where customers had complained, according to the Times.
The Times' original reporting on Borker prompted Google to change its algorithm so that negative postings no longer boost a site's search ranking. (Jared Newman at PCWorld argues this will not prevent unscrupulous businesses from gaming the system.)
Borker is also accused of selling counterfeit glasses, making interstate threats, and cyberstalking. He was denied bail.
This weekend's best story comes courtesy of the New York Times, whose Sunday business section features the jaw-dropping story of Vitaly Borker, a resident of Sheepshead Bay, and his online eyeglass store DecorMyEyes. What makes Borker special is his blatant disregard for both the law and his customers. Every time someone is unhappy with their order, Borker threatens the customer and refuses to refund their money without a protracted battle. As a result, Borker's business does better. Wait, what? As usual, Google is to blame.
Borker is a total scam artist who takes online orders for designer eyewear then buys the product from eBay and has it shipped to his customer. Sometimes the order is wrong, often it is counterfeit. But Borker has realized that the more people complain about him on blogs or consumer advocacy websites, the higher his website appears in Google searches for specific brand names.
When he started to realize that any press is good press when it comes to online business, he amped up the bad guy routine. "Listen, bitch," he told one nagging, unhappy customer. "I know your address. I'm one bridge over," he went on. "Then, she said, he threatened to find her and commit an act of sexual violence too graphic to describe in a newspaper."
Later, he sent the woman a photo of her apartment building using Google Earth. "Do the right thing and everyone goes away. I AM WATCHING YOU!"
He even brags online about his master plan:
"Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com," the post began. "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement."
"I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven."
Google, predictably, wants to stay as far from this story as possible, refusing to give any concrete answers when it comes to whether the site can differentiate between negative attention online and positive attention when it comes to ranking search results.
MasterCard, eBay and Citigroup, meanwhile, were all strong-armed by reporters and angry customers into taking action against Borker.
Still, he's relentless. He even agreed to be interviewed for the article, making for stellar scenes that sound like something out of a Sacha Baron Cohen skit. At his home in Brooklyn, Borker walks the Times reporter through his game:
"Look," he says, grabbing an iPad off a small table. He types "Christian Audigier," the name of a French designer, and "glasses" into Google. DecorMyEyes pops up high on the first page.
"Why am I there?" he asks, sounding both peeved and amazed. "I don't belong there. I actually outrank the designer's own Web site."
And on top of it all, he's a ham, constantly dreaming up new ways to get bad press:
When online fury about DecorMyEyes drops off, he dreams up new ways to stoke it. He briefly considered fabricating a story that Tony Russo had committed a murder -- where he would have posted this story he doesn't say -- which he then planned to link anonymously to Get Satisfaction.
Online we call this guy a troll. In a newspaper, we call this story a gem
такого бравого парня однако арестовали:
An online merchant who allegedly terrorized his customers in an effort to boost his online search ranking was arrested and charged with mail fraud and wire fraud on Monday.
Vitaly Borker, 34, launched a "campaign of intimidation" on one customer, Clarabelle Rodriguez, who told her story to the New York Times' David Segal after authorities were not interested in helping her.
When Rodriguez tried to return a pair of glasses she bought at Borker's eyeglasses site, DecorMyEyes.com, Borker threatened to sexually assault her and sent her a photo of the front of her house. "I know your address. I'm one bridge over," he told her, according to Rodriguez.
The feds' complaint against Borker shows he terrified other customers in a series of outrageously horrific emails and phone calls since 2007. He's accused of sending an email to one dissatisfied customer's work colleagues claiming that the customer was gay and involved in selling drugs. He allegedly told another customer "I know where you live," called her a "cheap Jew" and threatened to rape her. He urged another customer to "Please drop dead" in an obscenity-laden email.
But when Rodriguez and many other traumatized customers complained online, Borker gloated that they were only making him more money. Borker told the Times that the customer complaints boosted his ranking on Google, since the site's search algorithm could not distinguish between positive and negative reviews.
According to the complaint against him, more than 200 of his customers have filed complaints with authorities. "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement," Borker posted on one site where customers had complained, according to the Times.
The Times' original reporting on Borker prompted Google to change its algorithm so that negative postings no longer boost a site's search ranking. (Jared Newman at PCWorld argues this will not prevent unscrupulous businesses from gaming the system.)
Borker is also accused of selling counterfeit glasses, making interstate threats, and cyberstalking. He was denied bail.