Some people I know are far less forgiving. One of them is Matthew Keys. He runs The Desk, a website about TV and streaming read by 50,000 professionals who strategize about that kind of stuff.

Spammers copied Matthew’s recent story about the arrest of Marco Gaudino and pasted it to their site. Google put the aped version at the top of their search rankings. Matthew’s original and identical story was “nowhere to be found.”

Google says they look for stories readers value. Comparing the value of these two stories is like comparing two crisp twenties that popped out of an ATM. They’re indistinguishable.

But Google’s choice cost Matthew traffic and money. It’s not funny. Unsurprisingly, he’s perturbed. He tweeted as much to a search ombudsman. A couple of days later, when I searched for “Marco Gaudino charged,” Matthew’s story came up in the fifth position. So, maybe his actions helped. But the damage was done.