David Graff: Google’s Mistrust Policy Team Leader

David Allen Graff is the head of Google’s Trust and Safety Policy Team. When Google announces a new policy change cracking down on lawful businesses for lame political reasons he is often the person to make the announcement and promote it in the press. We found this out after Google targeted our industry. Our research into Graff revealed a pattern of similar behavior targeting somewhat less controversial industries. In this article we will briefly discuss his pre-Google career before highlighting efforts made by his department to harm businesses and conclude with whatever personal information we can find about him.

Pre-Google Career

We are relying primarily on Graff’s LinkedIn Profile for information about his pre-Google career.

Education

Graff graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in American Civilization sometime during the early 1990s. He went on to attend Georgetown Law School where he earned a J.D. and was a member of campus groups indicating an interest in criminal law.

Goodwin-Procter LLP

Graff began his professional career as an associate at Googdwin-Procter LLP from 1995-98.

Edison Learning

Graff was hired as General Counsel and Executive Vice President at Edison Learning in 1998. He describes himself as their chief legal officer where his responsibilities included assuring the company remained in compliance with government regulations, defending the company from lawsuits, and drafting/reviewing legal agreements.

Epic Media Group

Graff was hired as General Counsel and Senior Vice President by Epic Media Group in 2007. His job duties were likely similar to those he performed at Edison. Epic was one of the internet’s largest advertising networks.

Online Intelligence

In 2012 Graff became CEO of a now-defunct company called Online Intelligence. Graff described the company as a brand protection and traffic integrity service that helped advertisers with “monitoring for off-brand placements and prohibited content associations.” If Graff”s performance at Google is any indication, we can only image how many customers his clients lost due to Graff yanking their ads from running alongside any content remotely capable of offending anyone. This type of work and Graff’s history working for Epic obviously made him an ideal recruit in the eyes of Google.

Red Spark

Graff became General Counsel and Privacy Officer at Red Spark in 2012 despite still working for Online Intelligence through 2013. Red Spark is best known for the RTX Platform which is an alternative to Google’s ad network.

Google Career

Google hired Graff as their Senior Director of Trust and Safety in 2014. Trust and Safety might as well be called the Glavlit due to their striking similar goals and tactics. Google claims their goal “is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Unfortunately, Google has repeatedly shown that is not the case in recent years. It seems Google’s goal was to fulfill their stated mission just long enough to seize control of the search engine market so that they can control what people see.

Google’s Real Mission

Now that they control over 90% of the market Google is basically the gatekeeper to online information. The Glavlit “held ultimate editorial power over all printed materials in addition to overseeing public speaking and the performing arts” (see Glavlit and State Censorship). There were still underground newspapers and unsanctioned public speeches beyond Glavlit control in the USSR, but their effective use was of a rarity comparable to today’s alternative search engines. The United States government could never legally control our access to information in this way, so they’ve found a way to do it by proxy. By making print media and speaking in the public square obsolete means of communication before vesting ultimate control over their replacement to a private sector entity that works closely with the federal government.

Google’s Relationship with the Federal Government

Google’s works hand in hand with the federal government. Their relationship is so close that one of first things they did to shut us up was report this site to the FBI. About a month after the first post on this site was written we were contacted by a federal agent inquiring as to the intent behind our posting of home addresses and other personal information. We explained that our intent was to “organize their information and make it universally accessible and useful” as a means of protesting them for sabotaging their stated mission to do the same with the world’s information. We have found over the years that simply adding an address or phone number to a critical article can be enough to motivate the subject of our criticism to begin a dialog with us when we would otherwise be ignored. That is not criminal intent. Criminal intent would require that we intend to cause someone fear of imminent bodily harm. Fear of bodily harm was never our intention. A federal prosecutor later described the complaint saying that people at Google claimed to fear for their safety, but that she was not aware of any criminal activity actually occurring. We have not posted about this before because we want to obtain some documentation before going into further detail. We believe those claims to be exaggerated as part of an effort to find a technicality capable of silencing us. It is really convenient to attack the publication of true facts by claiming those facts cannot legally remain posted because you fear for your safety. That might work on lesser publishers (like Google) that curtail any activity the second they hear of a FBI investigation just to play it safe, but we are not that weak and we think what really scares them is their own inability to scare us at all.

We are not scared of the government because the government already did all they could to shut us up including putting our leader in a federal penitentiary for years. There is a reason why John Gotti said “I don’t trust anyone who hasn’t done time.” The reason is that usually only people that have done time can be trusted not to be intimidated by the government. When someone has done time and did it well they are not as afraid to do time as someone that never done time. They still fear having their quality of life diminished if they have to do more time, but they are not terrified of whatever lurks behind bars. Our founder did his time in general population at an active USP despite being a weak nerdy white boy. He did just fine in a high security penitentiary with violent career criminals including murderers and gangsters because he adopted their code and is head strong. Any true convict can tell you that the mind is what makes a solid dude. A solid dude like our leader can’t be intimidated by a bunch of little snitches at Google running their mouths. He also prefers not to do more time, so he has no intention of physically harming anyone or their property, but he won’t put up with their bullshit either. Google went down a path not knowing who they were stepping on and in the process stepped on somebody who won’t tolerate it because if he did tolerate it he would feel like a punk and he is not a punk, so when people cross certain lines with him he feels the need to do something about it. He probably would not be like that had he not done time, so in many ways he is a nemesis of the government’s own creation and Google’s too due to their relationship with the government being such that they might as well be a government agency.

If Google really did fear for their safety as they claimed then why didn’t they agree to our proposal? They didn’t even try to meet us in the middle. That is not the conduct of truly intimidated people. If they really wanted to make a case for being scared they would have complied with our demands just long enough to get us to take this site down and then they would have used their compliance as evidence of their fear.

The feds are not likely to prosecute Google for making a false report because it is hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they didn’t fear for their safety. Plus, law enforcement in general does not want to deter people with claims of fear from reporting those claims. On top of that Google’s actions leading up to the creation of this site suggests that a lot of their censorship is at the government’s urging or at least to prevent the government from complaining in the future. We think that is one reason why they won’t charge Google CEO Sundar Pichai with perjury based on his employees admitting that they manually manipulate search rankings after Pichai told Congress under oath that it is not possible for them to do so. We think the government does not want to deter Google from doing what they want when doing what they want requires admitting to perjury.

Google’s Attack on Payday Loans

In 2016, David Graff wrote a blog post announcing Google’s refusal to sell advertising to companies offering high interest short term loans known as payday loans. Nothing about this decision was good for the company. Google failed their fiduciary duty to their shareholders by refusing to accept money from lawful businesses for reasons that did not result in greater gains elsewhere or a decrease in expenses capable of making up for lost revenue. Graff justified this decision saying, “research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users,” but Google provided no evidence to suggest that those default rates were harmful to Google. It is entirely likely that people who lose money on payday loans no longer purchase services from Google that they could otherwise afford, but unless that figure exceeds ad revenue from that industry this move was a bad idea. Google has a greater obligation to their shareholders than they do to society, which is why we would be outraged if we owned Google stock.

Google’s Attack on Ticket Resellers

In February of 2018, Graff wrote a blog post announcing Google’s requirement that ticket resellers be certified to purchase Google ads. Graff claimed that this move was necessary because “some ticket resellers provide limited transparency in their ads about ticket costs and fees, as well as their association with a specific venue or event.” This regulation creates unnecessary costs at Google without increasing ad revenue. It also makes it harder for resellers to sell tickets by requiring them to disclose the original price of the ticket. Graff quoted a third party praising “Google’s dramatic step in consumer protection” while seemingly remaining oblivious to the fact that consumer protection is the government’s job and not Google’s.

Google’s Attack on Bail Bonds

In May of 2018, Graff wrote a blog post announcing Google’s refusal to sell ads promoting bail bonds. That ban on ads was followed by ranking manipulations according to a professional SEO we quoted in our manifesto. The person we quoted had refused to sell us search engine optimization services after Google attacked our industry citing bail bonds as an indicator that hiring him would be a waste of his time and our money. His exact words were:

“Google banned an entire industry, (Bail Bonds) from being on their paid platforms for advertising. All political. We then started to see huge anomalies in SERP’s and never could get traction there ever again. An entire Industry spending $12M+ a year in paid ads. No matter what we did to try and get rankings they would continue to do worse. Single handedly Google is wiping out the Bail Industry to fit their ideological views.“

– James Piccolo, President | Strategic Marketing Inc

Graff justified robbing Google shareholders of over $12 million a year for political reasons reeking of cultural Maxism, “Studies show that for-profit bail bond providers make most of their revenue from communities of color and low income neighborhoods when they are at their most vulnerable, including through opaque financing offers that can keep people in debt for months or years.” Graff also included a quote from Gina Clayton of the Essie Justice Group trying to make this move look beneficial to incarcerated people, “This is the largest step any corporation has taken on behalf of the millions of women who have loved ones in jails across this country.” That claim is preposterous. While there are many problems with the bail bonds industry that need to be changed, the industry ultimately does more good than harm by getting people out jail.

As we mentioned, our leader is an ex-con, but we did not mention that he was held without bail for over a year because there is no bail in the federal system where he was busted. In state court people are allowed to post bail if they are not released on their own recognizance due to being a flight risk or a danger to the community. In federal court those deemed a flight risk or a danger are held without bail. He is adamant that had he been given the opportunity to go into debt with a bail bondsman instead of remaining locked up in pre-trial detention he would have picked the debt. He also mentioned that his state abolished bail bonds a long time ago and recalls meeting many people who were in jail because they couldn’t afford to post 15% of their total bail amount to get out with conditions. The way the system there works is that people post 15% and are billed the rest if they violate their release conditions or don’t show up for court. Many people who can’t afford to post that 15% would gladly agree to a high interest arrangement with someone willing to post it for them. Google acts as if that is a bad thing. We agree that the bail bond industry should make themselves more affordable, but that is ultimately their call to make and having them around is much better than leaving people in jail.

Google is making it harder for people to get out of jail by denying those willing to post their bail an opportunity to promote themselves. Bail bondsmen do drive people living in “communities of color and low income neighborhoods” significantly further into debt, but that surely is not worse for their finances than having no income at all due to being in jail. Even if it were better for them financially to stay in jail it is not better for them as people. People are rarely the same after they’ve been in jail for any significant amount of time. Our leader for example seems like a mentally detached and when provoked occasionally volatile version of his former self. His professional marketability took a huge hit which is why he still works in our industry. He’s often blamed his status as a pretrial detainee for keeping him from being able to properly defend himself from his charges and notes that of all the time he did the pre-trial detention was the worst. It seems they really do all they can to isolate pre-trial detainees and cut them off from the world. He spent his first six months in solitary because jail staff were ordered to keep him from using the phone or getting other inmates to use it for him after a judge banned him from making phone calls to anyone but his attorney just to keep him from running his business from jail. Just being able to use the phone would have made it impossible for the government to shut him down by leaving him in there which was the real reason for prosecuting him. They knew his business was legal, so they went after him for whatever petty violation of the law they could find to incapacitate him personally. Had he been allowed bail and given the opportunity to burden a bail bondsman with the responsibility of the bail money he would have chosen that option because he would have had no intention of obeying release conditions aimed at crippling his business. He thinks that the decision to prosecute him was made largely due to the likelihood of being able to hold him without bail and had that not been an option there is a good likelihood he would not have been prosecuted at all given the fact that the alleged victim had provoked him by committing several crimes against him which were clearly intended to provoke a violent response from him for the purpose of creating legal recourse where none otherwise existed.

Google’s Attack on Tech Support

In August of 2018, Graff wrote a blog post announcing that Google was restricting ads for third party technical support providers unless they complete a verification process. Graff explained:

“We’ve seen a rise in misleading ad experiences stemming from third-party technical support providers and have decided to begin restricting ads in this category globally. For many years, we’ve consulted and worked with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in this area. As the fraudulent activity takes place off our platform, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers. That’s why in the coming months, we will roll out a verification program to ensure that only legitimate providers of third-party tech support can use our platform to reach consumers.“

– David Graff

In 2019, Graff updated the blog post to say that Google would no longer allow legitimate verified third party technical support services to advertise because they couldn’t tell the difference between them and bad actors.

“Unfortunately, our testing shows that the potential for ads that lead to abusive or misleading offline experiences in this category is still too high. As a result, we have decided to continue to block ads for third- party tech support providers until we are more confident we have a solution that will better protect our users from harm.”

– David Graff

Protecting the public from “abusive or misleading offline experiences” is not Google’s job and volunteering to do so is not good for Google. Google loses money by paying people to verify advertisers and loses more money by refusing to sell advertising while punishing innocent legitimate companies for their own failure to tell them apart from bad actors.

Imagine what this must be like for legitimate third party technical support services. They help people solve a wide range of technical problems which is a good thing, but they can’t advertise that good thing on Google just because Google can’t tell if its really good. It is not hard to imagine the legitimate frustration and rage on the part of third party tech support companies when they found out they can’t advertise themselves just because some other company did a bad thing. How many companies have gone under just so Google can say they are protecting users from other companies? How many people have lost their jobs because their employer cannot generate the leads they need to keep them there?

This practice of categorically shutting down traffic generation options for legitimate businesses just in case they might be a bad actor is not what got Google where they are today. In fact, the way they’re going we wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually just deindex everything that could possibly lead users to so called “bad actors” and justify it on the grounds of not being able to tell who the “bad actors” really are.

Google’s Attack on Reputation Management

In 2021, Graff spoke to The New York Times about Google’s admission to manually manipulating search engine rankings based on a site’s removal practices. This is the move that targeted our industry. We had been featured in the preceding story which falsely accused us of peddling slander. Rather than realizing that there is no such thing as written slander, any article about written words titled “The Slander Industry” couldn’t possibly be grammatically correct, and something so unprofessionally titled should not be taken seriously, Google took it so seriously that they were willing to make incriminating statements about their CEO just so they could convince the Times they were doing something about it.

Incriminating Sundar Pichai

We wrote an in depth piece about Google CEO Sundar Pichai last month in which we explained how statements made by David Graff and Pandu Nayak proved that he committed perjury in 2018 when he told Congress, “it is not possible for an individual employee or groups of employees to manipulate our search results” and that his company “provides users with the best experience and the most relevant information.” The practice of manually removing content from search results upon request based solely on the removal policy of the site hosting the content does not provide users with the most relevant information or the best experience. Furthermore, the practice of manually creating a list of search terms and a list of sites they don’t want ranking for those terms proves that it is possible for Google employees to manipulate search results.

Graff defended these actions calling Google “responsible citizens” while admitting “I doubt it will be a perfect solution” and claiming “I think it really should have a significant and positive impact.” Whether it has a positive impact really depends on what you consider positive to be. If your goal is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally acceptable and useful” as Google claims then this couldn’t possibly have a positive impact because it means that Google no longer provides users with “the best experience and the most relevant information” as Pichai’s testimony claimed.

Inferior User Experience

When a person searches Google for the name of another person they typically do so with open minded curiosity. They usually are not looking specifically for anything negative or positive, they’re just curious to learn what is out there about whoever’s name they’re Googling. People typically pay greater attention to negative information because it gets their guard up and naturally they click on negative headlines due to a somewhat subconscious urge to find out if the subject is a threat to them. That is why negative search results jump out of the page and have higher click thru rates than articles of neutral sentiment or social media profiles.

Before Google began manually censoring results from our sites we often noticed that articles about people ranked on the first page for name searches because our sites had a decent amount of link authority and our pages were optimized for those queries. Graff later claimed that “These sites are, frankly, gaming our system,” but the truth is we simply followed Google’s own guidelines which are intended to help Google better understand content. When a page is about a person and the webmaster makes sure the markup of the page makes that clear they’re not gaming the system. They are actually doing the opposite of gaming the system. Just because other websites don’t optimize their content as well and in many cases their content is of higher quality does not change that. If a low quality article outranks a higher quality one in name searches for its topic that is usually the fault of the losing webmaster for not doing a better job following Google’s guidelines. Unfortunately, this has led Google to obsess over quality and in many cases prioritize the overall quality of content over relevance to the query. A decade ago top results for a search were often full of exact matches while today they are often full of synonymous results from arguably higher quality sources. In many cases users are better served, but often they have a harder time finding exactly what they’re looking for. If a user has to click on more pages to find what they’re looking for the user experience suffers.

The subjects of negative articles often counter our argument by saying that finding negative articles when Googling yourself is a horrible experience, that having to pay removal fee makes it worse, and in cases of false accusations make it harder for other users to find accurate information about them. Those arguments fail to realize that usually there are more users Googling a subjects than subjects Googling themselves, that inaccurate information is still relevant to the topic, and having the opportunity to purchases removals beats the alternative.

Googling Yourself

Recent statistics indicate that about 60% of the population Google themselves, about half of them only do it once or twice a year, less than 10% have Google alerts setup for their names, and just 5% use reputation management software. It only takes 2 people to Google you before the overall user experience for search results about you is improved by including negative information.

Inaccurate is Still Relevant

We’ve heard from critics that claim Googlers are worse off when false accusations against people get between users and verified information. The basic logic is that users learn nothing useful from false accusations. We disagree, we think people learn something extremely valuable from false accusations against others. They learn that the person they’re researching has enemies. They might even get an idea why that person has enemies, how tenacious those enemies are, and if those enemies are known to target their associates. That last one can be extremely valuable to anyone looking to keep themselves from being tarnished by association.

The story about Nadire Atas from the Times which led to Google targeting us is a good example. In that extreme case a crazy lady targeted everyone she could link to her target. If we knew that guy we would have taken preclusions like asking him not to broadcast our association online and not openly admitting online to knowing him. We would have viewed his Google results as the likely work of some nut job and we would have disregarded her claims. Unfortunately, most people that should know better don’t do that and allow themselves to form conclusions based on posts like hers or allow the fear of others doing the same to influence their decisions. That is a societal problem that needs to be addressed by teaching people not to believe what they read online. Censoring unverified claims just because accusers might be lying is not the answer.

False accusations against people are not like other types of misleading information. Google is starting to treat them the same as misleading medical, legal, or financial advice which is inappropriate. If people believe false claims that beer cures COVID, murder is not illegal, and sending money to a Nigerian prince will make them rich we’ll end up with sick alcoholics rotting away in prison sending whatever they have left to a scammer oversees. Unlike a false accusation of a personal nature nobody can learn anything valuable from such things.

The value of truthful information posted online by anonymous users can be extremely useful to protect others. A legitimate warning about a scam can save people money, a warning about an unfaithful significant other can save their potential partners heartbreak, and a warning that someone has a contagious potentially lethal disease can save lives. The fact that such a warning exists is highly relevant to anyone researching someone except person being Googled even if they might not be true. Google has prioritized the emotional distress of defamation victims over the financial and medical wellbeing of others. We believe this can be explained somewhat by former Google employee James Damore who wrote in his paper Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber that “Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety.”

Google is acting as if sites hosting negative articles about people become completely irrelevant the second they offer to suppress information for a fee. Sites added to Google’s list of sites with “exploitative removal practices” are demoted in name searches so much that users must page through a bunch of irrelevant results that have nothing to do with their search to find them. That is where we drew the line because its one thing for Google to say that because our content is not verified that it should be ranked below verified content due to verified content being of higher quality or ranking it below benign content of neutral sentiment because negative accusations are more likely to be false. In those cases Google would still arguably be providing “users with the best experience and the most relevant information,” but nobody in their right mind can say the same when users are served completely irrelevant content. Nobody is well served with an advertisement for a Ford Bronco when they Google their name unless their name is O.J. Simpson. We’ve done image searches for people’s names only to find pictures of flowers and picnic tables hidden behind anyone with the same first or last name instead of our image even thought our image was the top result due to clearly being named firstname-lastname.jpg.

Real Impact of Removing Pay to Remove

When most people think about stopping sites from charging removal fees they think that would just lead to sites removing negative content upon request or requiring at worst some proof that a claim is false. Unfortunately that is not the case. Usually sites that are forced to stop charging removal fees stop removing anything at all or only remove stuff they are required by law to remove. That is because sites typically end up in the pay to remove business due to declines in advertising revenue that makes traditional moderation not economically viable. Google has played a huge role in that by banning edgy sites from running their ads. The next best things to Google AdSense usually have policies similar to Google, so sites must resort to inferior ad networks that require a lot more traffic to generate the same amount of money. Often it takes a long time to get there and in the meantime webmasters often learn that they can’t afford to waste time responding to complaints themselves let alone hire moderators. In such cases the only realistic option is to monetize moderation which means removal fees. People usually don’t realize that they are paying for an opportunity that would not be possible otherwise. That is why when sites can’t charge removal fees they usually stop removing anything.

Mugshots.com is a perfect example. Google targeted the mugshot industry in 2013 after the Times did a similar series on people claiming to have been wronged by having their mugshots posted online by sites that charged removal fees. They did all they could to make it look like a crime even though charging a fee to perform a removal service cannot be called extortion as a matter of law. Eventually states began passing laws against charging to remove mugshots. So far we are not aware of anyone challenging the Constitutionality of such laws. Most of the laws require states to exert claims over mugshots as public records and require public records brokers to provide free opt out options. The authority to pass such laws depends heavily on the fact that the government created the mugshots in the first place. Today the Mugshots.com Removal Policy only allows removal in cases of expungement and everyone else has no removal options at all anymore.

Absent the presence of ads that allow sites to make more money off less content they need all the content they can get to make what they still can. At that point the business model transitions from one where content moderation is done for free to maintain quality ads to one where content moderation needs to be made profitable. That is how our leader ended up doing what he does. He had a site that made some decent ad revenue off AdSense alternatives, but not enough to make moderation worth his time. He had been getting a lot of complaints from lawyers and he realized that people were spending good money on incompetent attorneys incapable of getting content about their clients removed from Google. He then offered an expensive service where he would place a noindex tag on the page, provide people with personalized advice intended to help them improve their reputations no matter where the negative stuff came from, and would contact authors in an effort to mediate disputes. His service did not fit Google’s definition of an exploitative practice, but Google treated it the same which just goes to show that you can’t rely on the written word of Google’s policies to figure out what is or is not allowed on Google. He viewed his service as a sacrifice for the greater good because even though it went against his principles it allowed him to stay in business and it had a trickle down effect causing him to respond to everyone’s complaints more promptly.

Google’s recent penalties leave him with few options. He could try disbanding his paid removal service hoping Google will lift the penalty; he could try rebranding his site using a new domain name without offering paid removals; he could stop advertising paid removals while offering them in secret; or he could do other things. Right now he is focusing on other things. He doesn’t think Google would lift the penalty if he stopped offering his paid service because they claimed it was done to suppress low quality content and they never lifted the penalty on mugshot sites after they stopped charging removal fees. This is both good and bad for people listed on his sites because for him “doing other things” means just leaving poorly performing sites online with a total lack of oversight while he does other stuff. His logic is that it costs nothing to keep hosting poorly performing sites on servers he would be paying for anyway to host other sites that are not performing poorly. Its good for people listed on the penalized sites because it means he won’t try to make content about them rank anymore, but its also bad because Google is not the only search engine, the sites still do well on others, and without paid removals it is not worth his time to moderate them at all.

The most popular solution to Google’s actions in the industry has been to stop advertising paid removal services while at the same time continuing to offer them behind the scenes. This usually involves posting notices on sites saying that removals are not available in an effort to make Google think they’re not or at least create plausible deniability as to their existence. In such cases the removals are typically marketed via direct messages or emails in response to complaints or by advertising the ability to remove content on a second site. For instance, you’re likely to find Site A hosting negative information and Site B advertising guaranteed removals of content on Site A as part of a reputation management service. This scenario is not good for anyone. It is bad for the websites because only a few people are made aware that services exist and it is bad for the customer because it makes doing business more expensive which means the price of the removal services increase significantly. We find this frustrating because some of our sites offer automated solutions that allow anyone to remove any page instantly for a small fee. It leads the industry as the cheapest and fastest removal option, but fewer people are using it because just using it at all results in a Google penalty. At the same time our competitors can stay on the first page hosting similar content about the same people just because they don’t advertise their removal services. Making removals available to just a select few that are aware of and willing to use a service that costs at least a few hundred dollars is not better than doing the same thing for anyone for far less than a hundred dollars. We were hoping that by undercutting their prices we could take credit for lowering prices across the industry and maybe even get our competitors to implement our automated solution as part of a partnership, but now they might be better off not doing that. Most of the people that use our automated solution never bother asking us to remove anything beforehand, so we doubt we would be better off only offering paid removals only to people that complain because most of them don’t buy anything and the number of complaints we get doesn’t exceed the number of sales by much. If we stopped offering the automated solution we would have to jack up prices significantly to make up for losing customers and having to manually solicit sales.

Google’s changes have made the user experience slightly better in one way. Results are no logger clogged with duplicate content. Before the change search results for names often resulted in a whole bunch of similarly titled results featuring the same articles from different websites because there was nothing else out there about the person. We concede that can create an arguably worse user experience even though no other relevant stuff exists. In such cases people must page through copies of the same thing to see that nothing else exists. People are better served if they only see one or two copies of the same article on the first page. Then they can see from the rest of it that there is nothing else relevant. This seems to have been one result of Google’s actions in some cases, but with the deciding factor on which articles stay being based entirely on whether or not they can be removed for a fee. In many cases there are no relevant results other than our articles which is where we draw the line. We also think this can make search results more damaging because only having a couple makes it less obvious if they are the result of a smear campaign. We think seeing dozens of reposts on Google makes it obvious that they are the work of a vindictive individual. Leaving just a couple makes them look more like legitimate use of the host websites. The compromise we propose in our manifesto would revert search back to its pre-manipulation state with the addition of warning labels advising users about unverified, disputed, or misleading content. We think giving users more information would lead to a much better user experience than denying them access to information for reasons irrelevant to content quality.

Personal Information

David Allen Graff is a 54 year old resident of San Francisco, California with property in Massachusetts. A comprehensive criminal background check did not reveal any charges or arrests, but it did result in a boat load of personal information. We also learned that he is a registered Democrat with a law license and a Facebook profile.

Where He Lives

Graff’s last known residential address in the San Francisco Bay Area is 322 Missouri St, San Francisco, California 94107.

Graff owns what appears to be a vacation home in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts at 200 John Hoft Road.

Phone and Email

We’ve linked Graff to a few phone numbers and email addresses that appear relevant and recent. Phone numbers include (508) 684-8240 which is linked to his San Francisco home, 973-783-2922 a New Jersey based mobile number linked to property we believe Graff to have sold in 2018, and 917-456-7297 which is also linked to his San Francisco home. There were others, but we only like to include phone number that our background check service give a 5 out of 5 confidence score.

We’ve found several email addresses that appear linked to Graff. Old work emails that may or may not be active include [email protected] and [email protected]. More recent emails include [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Law License

Graff received a license to practice law in the state of Maryland on December 12, 1995. His license number 9512120314. His license is still active.

Conclusion

This is the best article ever written about David Graff. It covers his history with information not found elsewhere, but we doubt it will ever rank well on Google. Surely Graff will find some lame excuse to justify demoting it in search below many pages of irrelevant content.