Single Web Hit Led to UAL Glitch, Tribune Says - WSJ.com
Tribune Co. said the chain of events that caused a 2002 article about United Airlines' then-bankruptcy filing to appear, leading to a plunge in the parent company's shares Monday, began with a single late-night visit to a newspaper Web site.
That single visit at a low-traffic period caused the old Chicago Tribune article to appear in a box labeled "Popular Stories Business: Most Viewed" on the Web site of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at about 1 a.m. EDT Sunday.
About 30 minutes later, a reader looking for information on canceled flights, clicked on the link to the old story in that box, and 52 seconds later, Google Inc.'s automated search agent Googlebot visited the Web site and found the story.
Soon after that, Google provided a link to the old story on Google News and by Monday the article became more widely distributed to users of Bloomberg LP, the financial-news service widely watched on Wall Street.
Google referred questions to its Google News Blog, which included its chronology of events. The blog noted that the article "failed to include a standard newspaper article dateline," but the Web page was dated Sept. 7, 2008.
"Because the Sun-Sentinel included a link to the story in its 'Popular Stories' section, and provided a date on the article page of September 7, 2008, the Google News algorithm indexed it as a new story. We removed this story as soon as we were notified that it was posted in error," Google added.
UAL's shares dropped to $3 a share from nearly $12.50 on Monday before the Nasdaq Stock Market halted trading and UAL issued a statement denying any fresh Chapter 11 filing. The stock of United Airlines' parent fell 1.2% to $9.85 in after-hours trading Wednesday.
Tribune continues to blame Google for the series of events, saying it identified problems with Googlebot months ago. Tribune said it asked Google to stop using Google to crawl newspaper Web sites but Google continued to do so.
Tribune Co. said the chain of events that caused a 2002 article about United Airlines' then-bankruptcy filing to appear, leading to a plunge in the parent company's shares Monday, began with a single late-night visit to a newspaper Web site.
That single visit at a low-traffic period caused the old Chicago Tribune article to appear in a box labeled "Popular Stories Business: Most Viewed" on the Web site of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at about 1 a.m. EDT Sunday.
About 30 minutes later, a reader looking for information on canceled flights, clicked on the link to the old story in that box, and 52 seconds later, Google Inc.'s automated search agent Googlebot visited the Web site and found the story.
Soon after that, Google provided a link to the old story on Google News and by Monday the article became more widely distributed to users of Bloomberg LP, the financial-news service widely watched on Wall Street.
Google referred questions to its Google News Blog, which included its chronology of events. The blog noted that the article "failed to include a standard newspaper article dateline," but the Web page was dated Sept. 7, 2008.
"Because the Sun-Sentinel included a link to the story in its 'Popular Stories' section, and provided a date on the article page of September 7, 2008, the Google News algorithm indexed it as a new story. We removed this story as soon as we were notified that it was posted in error," Google added.
UAL's shares dropped to $3 a share from nearly $12.50 on Monday before the Nasdaq Stock Market halted trading and UAL issued a statement denying any fresh Chapter 11 filing. The stock of United Airlines' parent fell 1.2% to $9.85 in after-hours trading Wednesday.
Tribune continues to blame Google for the series of events, saying it identified problems with Googlebot months ago. Tribune said it asked Google to stop using Google to crawl newspaper Web sites but Google continued to do so.
