Bettina Wulff And Her Google Problem

Used to only affect prejudiced American politicians like Rick Santorum, but is the former German First Lady now has a “Google Search Problem”?

By: Ringo Bones

A few days ago, Bettina Wulff – wife of former German President Christian Wulff – launched a defamation lawsuit on Google because the famed internet company’s search engine suggests that she has a somewhat “racy” past because of its autocomplete function. Given that this sort of “street-cred” is something a woman of her standing doesn’t need and she’s not the first political personality to be a victim of a well-orchestrated on-line smear campaign, are the “overlords” of Google in their “ivory towers” at Mountain View and Palo Alto really the ones’ at fault here?

A few years ago, a prominent gay rights activist in America launched a smear campaign against homophobic GOP politician by the name of Rick Santorum. With the help of other net-savvy gay rights activist in America and elsewhere in the world, whenever you Google Rick Santorum, the search result is something about the less than savory aspects of male gay sexual intercourse that’s only appropriate for those 18 or older. Scores of computer-savvy hacktivists – an overwhelming majority of them probably not employed by Google – probably used esoteric search engine optimization techniques so that whenever one use Google to search for Santorum this day and age, a less than palatable search result often returns.

Is something similar at work here with the former German First Lady Bettina Wulff? Well, based on news that came out of Germany during the past few years, former German President Christian Wulff has never been hated by net-savvy anarchists in Germany or the rest of the Eurozone to warrant such  politically motivated search engine optimization based smear campaign directed at his wife on such a wide scale. Work of a lone high-level cyberstalker, perhaps?