Sarkozy gets Google 'bombed'
2010-09-06 14:35
Paris - President Nicolas Sarkozy has become the latest world leader to fall victim to "Google bombing", with his Facebook page now associated with the French term for "asshole" on the search engine.
Internet pranksters set up a series of links tied to the term "trou du cul" to Sarkozy's official Facebook profile, confusing Google's search motor into making the site its top result for anyone hunting for the obscene phrase.
He thus became the latest victim of a craze which has seen former British prime minister Tony Blair's official website linked to the word "liar" and former US president George W Bush to "miserable failure" and worse.
"Sometimes, using this technique known as 'Google bombing', jokers can generate strange results," Google said in a statement.
"In this specific case, a certain number of webmasters used the expression in question to link to Nicolas Sarkozy's Facebook page, thus moving it up the list of search results associated with this search term," it explained.
"We don't support this practice, nor any other aimed at altering the integrity of our search results, but this in no way affects the general quality of our search engine, whose impartiality is at the heart of all we do."
Sarkozy's office had no immediate comment on the prank.
Among other famous Google bombs, US users sent searchers for the phrase "French military victories" to a site reading: "Google cannot find any French military victories, did you mean French military defeats?"
- SAPA