Forget the social media gurus who blow kisses to lawyers on twitter, and learn from Vitaly Borker.  So you want to make it to the top of Google and be the “go-to” guy on the internet?  All it takes is a few threats and some well-placed cheating. 

From the New York Times, Clarabelle Rodriguez wanted to buy some designer eyeglasses and contacts, so she Googled.

In moments, she found the perfect frames — made by a French company called Lafont — on a Web site that looked snazzy and stood at the top of the search results. Not the tippy-top, where the paid ads are found, but under those, on Google’s version of the gold-medal podium, where the most relevant and popular site is displayed.

She bought, but things went downhill from there.

The next day, a man named Tony Russo called to say that DecorMyEyes had run out of the Ciba Visions. Pick another brand, he advised a little brusquely.

“I told him that I didn’t want another brand,” recalls Ms. Rodriguez, who lives in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. “And I asked for a refund. He got rude, really obnoxious. ‘What’s the big deal? Choose another brand!’ ”

The issue went unresolved.  The glasses arrived two days later, and they were counterfeits.  The charge not only included the contact lenses that weren’t delivered, but included an additional $125.

“I’m going to contact my credit card company,” she told him, “and dispute the charge.”

Until that moment, Mr. Russo was merely ornery. Now he erupted.

“Listen, bitch,” he fumed, according to Ms. Rodriguez. “I know your address. I’m one bridge over” — a reference, it turned out, to the company’s office in Brooklyn. Then, she said, he threatened to find her and commit an act of sexual violence too graphic to describe in a newspaper.

Enough of the fun stuff.  The article is long, and Russo, one of many names used by Borker along with “Stanley Bolds,” only became increasingly unpleasant and dishonest, including canceling her credit card dispute by pretending to be Rodriguez (nice job, Citibank).  But the point is that Borker figured something out.

Today, when reading the dozens of comments about DecorMyEyes, it is hard to decide which one conveys the most outrage. It is easy, though, to choose the most outrageous. It was written by Mr. Russo/Bolds/Borker himself.

“Hello, My name is Stanley with DecorMyEyes.com,” the post began. “I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement.”

It’s all part of a sales strategy, he said. Online chatter about DecorMyEyes, even furious online chatter, pushed the site higher in Google search results, which led to greater sales. He closed with a sardonic expression of gratitude: “I never had the amount of traffic I have now since my 1st complaint. I am in heaven.”

Google fails to distinguish the website with a massive number of legitimate links that are negative from those that are positive, making the best and worst equivalent in Google’s “eyes.”  Can’t distinguish yourself based on competence or skill?  Then just lie, cheat and steal enough to outrage everyone you touch and you too can be a winner.

Most people function from a perspective of relative good will.  We assume others are reasonably honest and legitimate in their transactions.  We give them the benefit of the doubt.  In most instances, it’s a sound practice.  But as gaming Google, distinguishing oneself from the ever-growing mass of shouting “buy me” and “hire me” on the internet makes it increasingly difficult to find a way to stand out, efforts become more extreme. 

Even marketers, provided they are being honest with themselves, have come to the realization that they are just producing noise.  From Seth Godin :

I was talking to a colleague about all the noise out there in the world, all the messages, ads, announcements, pitches and friend requests. “And you’re sending even more every day into that maelstrom.”

“No we’re not,” she said. “Ours isn’t noise.”

Yes it is.

Lawyer websites are no better.  Honest websites do little to entice the unsuspecting client, unless you’re in such an unusual niche that they can’t find other lawyers.  Dishonest websites make all sorts of fascinating claims, from honors by non-existent bar associations to fantastical claims of success to self-attributed characterizations of grandeur.  Even those websites doing little more than “being there” lay claim to unearned experience or false reputation by mindlessly using some marketer’s stock language.

Vitaly Borker is shameless, unrepentant.

Nice? No.

Profitable?

“Very,” says Vitaly Borker, the founder and owner of DecorMyEyes, during the first of several surprisingly unguarded conversations.

“I’ve exploited this opportunity because it works. No matter where they post their negative comments, it helps my return on investment. So I decided, why not use that negativity to my advantage?”

Once one gets past the whole honesty thing, there is a brave, new world of dishonesty to explore.  Is there any particular reason why a lawyer, who has already decided to manufacture an online persona designed to get business that his real life persona could never match, would decide that there’s a depth to which he will not go? 

Perhaps some lawyers have a shame threshold that can’t be explained by a conceptual ledge on the slippery slope, but as the quest to market oneself fails to provide the desired return, increasingly extreme measures will be needed.  Hey, the kids have to eat and the lease payment is due on the Mercedes. 

But what about law enforcement, putting a stop to criminals (and he certainly appears to be a criminal) like Borker?

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, a partnership between the F.B.I. and the National White Collar Crime Center, announced two weeks ago that it had received its two millionth complaint since it began in 2000. Consumer losses are estimated at $1.7 billion.

The story of DecorMyEyes suggests that 15 years after the birth of online commerce, the Internet is still strewn with trap doors, and that when consumers take a tumble, they are pretty much on their own.

Two million is a lot of complaints, and there aren’t enough cops to go around, even if we assumed they cared in the slightest about individual instances of internet crime.  Borker could jump up and down in front of the FBI offices all day long without attracting much attention.  He’s just another small potatoes guy making a living on the internet, unworthy of much notice.  If you doubt it, consider how brazen he must be to talk about his “exploitation” to a reporter from the New York Times. 

The irony of writing this post is that I fear giving new ideas to those who have tried walking the street in hotpants and found themselves unable to get any cruising cars to stop.  In the back of my mind, I want to believe that lawyers, unlike Borker, would never adopt these methods to get their websites to the top of Google, to game the system and scam clients for a buck.

Lawyer wouldn’t do that to get to the top.  Would they?