"Overstock said it discontinued the program on Feb. 10, before hearing from Google, but said some university Webmasters have been slow to remove the links." As a Google spokesman acknowledged: "Attempts to game Google's ranking go on 24 hours a day, every single day." Therefore, which sites the search giant chooses to punish can sometimes seem arbitrary. In another instance earlier this month, Google reportedly lowered the ranking of links to J.C. Penny Co. in response to improper search engine optimization tactics.