BP's PR relies on purchasing power for crisis management

Here is an interesting article about how BP is dealing with the aftermath of the oil spill. It also raises questions of media ethics as well for both BP and google. Apparently, you can purchase search terms on sites like google that bring your site to the top of the search list. BP has supposedly done this for terms related to their little problem in the gulf. If you type in (try this) 'gulf oil' or a few other related terms, BP's response page comes up first on the search. So for anyone trying to get information, a google search leads right to the source. This is good, right?

From a public relations standpoint, this is probably pretty awesome. Anyone looking for info on the oil spill will immediately find the BP page and be given the information that BP wants to put into the press concerning the spill. But the question for me is, how can you 'buy' a term? Sure you can buy web addresses and domains and all that, but an actual search term? And according to the article, for nearly $10,000 a day!? Another question: what/who determines the cost of that term and where is all that money going? So for the freelance photographer who wants to place his photos of the damage done by BP or the family who STILL hasn't received the compensation for the loss of their entire livelihood, but can't afford $10,000 a day advertising on google, they're out of luck. Someone already "owns" the term 'oil spill' and their little site probably lands somewhere towards the bottom 30,000 of the google search.

Of course, if you click on the BP link, it offers alot more than inflated PR spin on the spill, there are volunteer links, contacts, etc. But its just something to think about, if you can buy a 'word' on the internet, what's next? What else do people own online that we don't know about yet?