Some might call this creative selling - after all, Google does have money to make, and Adwords and other products are a key method of doing this. Others might say that this was, in some way, naughty. Lauren published a business jargon-heavy retraction, and Google's corporate blog has also waded in.

Frankly, all this does is confirm that Google is just like any other company - with one caveat that I'll get into later. Let's have a bit of reality here. People might like to believe that Google is some new, shiny beast, that Web 2.0 is going to change things where .com didn't. I sincerely hope al of this will change established economic and business rules, but I rather fear that it won't. Look at the agonising corporate-speak in the retractions, for example. The fact that Google is using these tactics - which are pretty accepted - to make sales. There's nothing new here. Move along, but please, don't be surprised.

I mentioned a caveat, and this is it; all of this was done in public. What might, in the past, have been a Glengarry - Glenross steak knives phonecall from the Smile 'n Dial department is now open to view to everyone. That, at least, is the good news. That's what we should be getting exercised about.