Forgive me if this has been posted already, but I didn't see a thread about it this morning when I checked... http://chronicle.com/free/2003/02/2003020302t.htm UoP blames a vendor in the article, but this brings up a couple of questions: 1) Isn't it illegal to use a trademarked name as a keyword like that? Shouldn't Google have prevented that from the start? 2) Is UoP really allowing vendors to just do things like this completely unchecked? Do they really just throw money around like that? I guess that is the mind set of the company though http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=350&e=13&u=/kpix/20030124/lo_kpix/5622 (see paragraph 4). Toonces
Thanks, Toonces. I've been meaning to post about this, but you did a vastly more thorough take on it than I would have thought to do. The first time it happened I typed in a university name and the first search listing when clicked on turned into UoP. Being something of an internet idiot I didn't think much of it. Then it happened again. So I tried a stupid little experiment: I typed in various places in and around Detroit. Imagine my surprise when my search for Melvindale University (no, there is no such school in Melvindale, Michigan) led to UoP. Over and over again it happened. It also works with some foreign country names and at least several US states. How clever.
I noticed it too. It was that kind of gross commercialism that turned me, and several of my DL friends, away from UoP at the begining of our research. Well, that and the price tag.
Wow. Even more chutzpah in this than when University of Phoenix did a big advertising campaign in Stockton, California, never mentioning the school name, but only referring to it as "UOP." Apparently people actually enrolled, believing it was Stockton's own "University of the Pacific" known locally as "UOP."
Tsk, tsk, Google! If you search on Google for "business degree", near the top of the the "Sponsored Links" (i.e. ads) is the very non-legit customdegrees.com .
Double wow! Apparently, the sleaziness has no limits. It is one thing to try to skim customers from brick and mortar institutions that do not have any distance learning offerings; it is another thing altogether to rip off Thomas Edison State College.
Look where University of Phoenix ads are appearing now: http://verificationservices.7p.com/test.html Toonces asked, "Is UoP really allowing vendors to just do things like this completely unchecked?" I sure hope the answer is yes. I'd hate to think they authorized this.
Wow--that's all I can say about that. I especially like Question #5 on their FAQ (http://verificationservices.7p.com/faq.html), where they recommend UoP along with Lexington University and the even more prestigious Diplomas For Less. If UoP isn't aware of this, they certainly should be--if they are, they should be ashamed. Toonces