Google blog hoax uncovered, Click-to-Call test 'on schedule'

This weekend Google discovered the hard way that Blogger had an undiscovered bug, after a hoaxer managed to publish an announcement on the official Google Blog.

According to a post on Friday, Google had chosen to cancel its Click-to-Call programme.

The fake post read as follows:

“After concientiously considering, Google has decided not to continue with Google Click-to-call project. The project has been in the media on last days because of the notice of Google agreement with e-Bay. We finally consider click-to-call agreement with e-Bay a monopolistic aproach that would damage small companies in the CRM area.”

I read that on Saturday and it struck me as odd, for four reasons:

1. The cancellation would have been surprising since Google had agreed a promotional deal with eBay in summer, to help raise awareness and usage of Click-to-Call.
   
2. Google has its sights set on SMEs and local search. Click-to-Call should play a big part in that strategy.
   
3. It’s eBay, not ‘e-Bay’.
   
4. It’s approach, not ‘aproach’.

It turns out this morning that the whole thing was a wind up, by a hoaxer who had spotted a bug in Blogger, the blog platform owned by Google, which powers the company’s official blog.

Google owned up to the hoax yesterday:

“A bug in Blogger enabled an unauthorized user to make a fake post on the Google Blog last night, claiming that we’ve discontinued our AdWords click-to-call test. The bug was fixed quickly and the post removed.”

It added: “As for the click-to-call test, it is progressing on schedule, and we’re pleased with the results thus far.”

Smoke = fire? Or just a hoax? Presumably the latter.