What is Google Answers?
Google Answers is an expert answering service that is staffed by over 800 freelance researchers who have been vetted by Google. For fifty cents, users can pose questions on Google Answers, and like Ebay®, they determine what the product is worth to them. They set the amount of money they are willing to pay for the correct answer (minimum of $2) and the amount of time they will wait for a reply. Any registered user may offer comments on the question but only Google-affiliated researchers may provide an answer. When a researcher indicates an interest in responding, the question is “locked in” for an hour. If the response is satisfactory, the user pays Google the agreed-upon fee 75% of which goes to the researcher and 25% of which the company pockets. If the user is not satisfied with the response, s/he can request clarifications or reject the response and the question goes back into the queue for other researchers. The user can request a full refund (minus the fifty cent registration fee
