Anyone would think the underground campaign against Google in the UK was gathering momentum. A messageboard. Posters on the tube. Placards on north London lampposts. Flyposters on Carnaby Street. The effect, magnified by cameraphone images posted to Flickr. It's a 21st century revolt, against the monopoly of Larry and Sergey. Except look who's posting many of the images to Flickr, one Sergio Montini, a Brazilian designer. Browse back through his Flickr gallery. Ah, a selection of his graphic designs for the front page of Ask in the UK. The also-ran search engine, owned by Barry Diller's IAC, has not disclosed its financing of the attack ads on Google. But Ask is a client of the agency behind the campaign, and one of the faux guerrillas, the search engine's designer, has done a poor job of covering his tracks. The idea of positioning a search engine against Google is a good one; but why so sneaky about it, and so amateurishly sneaky, at that? The trail, in pictures, here.

Contact information for this author is not available.