Given the 15 year gap between the events and this post about them, I'm pretty sure OP isn't still angry. They likely were just working on a search engine, and this old story came to mind, and they realized that it'd be perfect clickbait (maybe rage-bait?) to serve as lead-gen for the search-engine project.
(Remember, someone building a search-engine is likely very, very familiar with SEO.)
(Remember, someone building a search-engine is likely very, very familiar with SEO.)