UPDATE 2003-01-10: While Google still uses the phrase "uniquely democratic" in describing PageRank, it's clear by now that they don't believe their own hype. In 2002, SearchKing sued Google for zeroing SearchKing's PageRank. SearchKing openly attempted to monetize PageRank, and everyone expected Google to do something. Google's response to the lawsuit admits that they did this, and then defends their action on the grounds that PageRank is Google's "opinion" of SearchKing, protected by the First Amendment. To wit: PageRank is ultimately, after Google applies whatever special tweaks it chooses for whatever reasons, a measure of a web page's usefulness to Google. (PageRank was worth 0 million in profits to Google last year. Zeroing the competition can be useful!)
注：Daniel Brandt是公众信息调查有限公司(Public Information Research, Inc.)的创建人和总裁。这家公司是一个赞助NameBase服务的免税公共团体。他自1982年开始编辑NameBase，而他所编辑的数据资料是从1974开始的，而现在他PIR的一些网站的程序员和网站管理人。他经常参加各种论坛上的讨论，在这些论坛上许多网站管理者交流一些秘密的计算方法，程序错误以及对搜索引擎的不同行为的看法。在2000年10月Google成为第一个透过数千个动态页面深入PIR主网站的搜索引擎之前，Brandt就已经在观察Google与NameBase的交互性。而关于他反对Google的霸权这件事上他是这么说的："我感觉这像是件正确的事情。这相当于在网络世界里又一次我的起兵反抗。"第一次是针对他以前的一次起诉官司而言。
