First it was Calacanis, now it's Mark Cuban - they both have the same "brilliant" idea for knocking Google back a few notches:

Broadcast.com co-founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's idea is simplicity itself: Just pay the top 1,000 websites a million bucks per to de-list themselves from Google.

There are two problems with this idea:

• It only works if most of the sites go along - a decent number of holdouts torches the entire thing
• The interests of the sites themselves weigh against this

The first item is a classic instance of "prisoner's dilemma" - everyone gains if everyone stays together, but a few can gain at the expense of the others if they jump ship. Apparently, Cuban and Calacanis are unfamiliar with this idea.

The second item is even simpler. Take our site: CincomSmalltalk.com. Is it in my interest to be found regardless of where people look, or only if they look in the right search engine? The question answers itself - unless you're Cuban or Calacanis, in which case it's a real puzzler...

Technorati Tags: stupidity, prisoners dilemma