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Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
aggregators, copyright, fair use, rupert murdoch, search engines

Companies:
news corp.



A Look At All The Sites Owned By Rupert Murdoch That 'Steal' Content

from the who-ya-gonna-block-now,-rupert? dept

As Rupert Murdoch talks about how he wants to cut off Google, while claiming that aggregator sites are "parasites" and "stealing" from him -- and that fair use would likely be barred by the courts, it seemed like a good time to examine at least some of the sites that are owned by Rupert Murdoch that appear to aggregate content from other sites and which rely on the very same fair use argument. We've mentioned a few in the past, but figured it wouldn't hurt to explore them more thoroughly.

Well, let's start with the flagship Wall Street Journal itself. It integrates its own "aggregator" with headlines and links to other stories. For example, on the WSJ's tech news page if you scroll down, you'll find a bunch of headlines and links to other sources -- without permission:

Oops. Looks like the WSJ is "parasiting" and "stealing" according to Murdoch. Perhaps he should cut them of too.

Okay, how about Fox News itself? Yup. It's got an aggregator as well. Here's its Politics Buzztracker that aggregates and links to stories from a variety of different publications, including the NY Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and others:
Murdoch can't be too happy about all that thieving.

Then we've got the folks over at AllThingsD, who I actually think do excellent work, and who have built up a nice part of their site called "Voices." I actually quite like this and find it useful (and yes, every so often, they are kind enough to "parasite" one of my posts). In fact, it helps keep AllThingsD in my RSS reader because it's so useful. But, damn, if that doesn't look just like what Murdoch is complaining about. Not only does it have headlines, but also a fair bit of intro text (no summary, no commentary) and even the links are hidden at the bottom, rather than using the headlines as links:
Of course, it's not just with news either. The folks at AlarmClock remind us that Murdoch's News Corp. owns IGN, which has a variety of properties, including the ever popular RottenTomatoes movie review aggregation site. Yes, the entire site is based on "parasiting" (according to Murdoch) movie reviews off of every other site, and pulling them all together:
Good thing Murdoch is planning on working on ways to get the court to ban that sort of "fair use."

Some other IGN sites don't quite have aggregators, but I do find it interesting that they've integrated in Google search, such that you could do searches for things across the web and have them remain in a totally News Corp./IGN-branded experience. Effectively, on these pages, Murdoch's own properties are able to "parasite" back Google's own "parasite" engine. Here are two examples:


I'm sure there are probably more examples of various News Corp. properties regularly doing exactly what Murdoch and other News Corp. execs are now decrying as illegal and which must be stopped. So, it has to be asked, Mr. Murdoch, will you pull down all of these sites?

61 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
ling chai, matt cutts, metatags, search engines, trademark

Companies:
google, jenzabar



Jenzabar Says That Google Blog Post Is 'Hearsay', Not Official Google Statement

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Last month, we wrote about the highly troubling efforts by the head of software firm Jenzabar to abuse trademark law to stifle criticism of that company's founder and CEO (who, earlier in her life, was famous for "leading" part of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square). She was upset at the makers of a documentary film that was somewhat critical of her, and she tried to use trademark law against them, after an attempt at defamation failed. There is simply no trademark violation at all in this situation... but it is a company with lots of cash suing some independent documentary film makers, so it has all the appearances of filing a lawsuit just to cause trouble for the filmmakers.

Our posts were based on some blog posts by Public Citizen, criticizing Jenzabar and its founder/CEO Ling Chai. Rather than recognizing that it's going too far, Jenzabar apparently decided to go on the attack. Public Citizen's Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Chai and Jenzabar are now claiming that Public Citizen's blogging about the case is illegal.

Specifically, the complaint from Jenzabar is that Levy pointing out that Google has stated that it does not use metatags in its search algorithms is not admissible and will "cause prejudice," because it is not an official statement from Google. That, of course, is silly. Google has made it clear for a while that it doesn't use metatags, but this particular announcement came from Google's Matt Cutts (disclaimer: an acquaintance/friend of mine) and was on Google's official blog, and Matt regularly speaks for Google on these sorts of issues. Yet, Jenzabar claims that it's "hearsay." That seems like a pretty difficult position to take. Jenzabar really wants to keep insisting that Google uses metatags, even as Google is making clear it does not? And it wants to force the court to censor blog posts to keep living in that fantasy world? Good luck with that...

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Say That Again

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
aggregators, copyright, fair use, rupert murdoch, search engines

Companies:
google, news corp.



Murdoch Says Fair Use Can Be Barred By Courts; Will Probably Remove Sites From Google

from the suicide-squeeze dept

And we thought that perhaps -- just perhaps -- Rupert Murdoch was coming to his senses with the plan to delay putting up a paywall. Turns out that may have been wishful thinking. Mathew Ingram alerts us to the news that Murodch has suggested that News Corp. might actually remove its sites from Google. Of course, I won't actually believe it until it happens, but he has had his minions going around slamming Google even as News Corp. offers its own aggregators. But actually following through and removing News Corp's sites from Google would be a huge step to take -- though one right off the side of a big cliff. Still, I'm sure it would make for a fun case study.

In the meantime, his explanation is really quite stunning. He claims that he believes fair use is a concept that the courts will reject:

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether..."
Wow. Of course, if that's true, then (again) we need to point out that News Corp. has been making use of fair use for years with its own aggregators. In fact, most news organizations regularly make use of fair use. Perhaps News Corps' lawyers who work in their news divisions might want to sit Murdoch down and explain the importance of fair use from a reporting perspective. They might also want to point him to the history of fair use within copyright law, in case he thinks it's something that was just made up yesterday.

74 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Say That Again

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
brendan hopkins, journalism, newspapers, search engines

Companies:
apn



Newspaper Publisher: Search Engines Break Into Our Homes

from the excuse-me? dept

Reader Mark points us to the latest ridiculous claims from a newspaper publisher against search engines like Google. This time, it's Brendan Hopkins, the CEO of APN, Australia's largest regional newspaper, who seems to be blaming everyone else for his own inability to come up with a good business model. The real kicker is his attack on search engines:

"To use an analogy, I see search engines as breaking into our homes, itemising the contents, walking out and listing everything for everyone to see. And they get money out of that process.... The only problem is, I don't see any revenue being paid directly from Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft in our company profit and loss accounts."
Yes, how dare they point more people to your site. And this isn't private info in your house that Google is suddenly maliciously displaying. This is content that you put up on your site on purpose with the goal of getting more people to see it. The analogy would only make sense if you didn't offer up that content for public consumption.

But, of course, the blame also gets spread around to anyone else who reports on the news in one of APN's papers:
"Our value is diminished by other media companies, both online and in print, with limited resources, who feed off our newspapers, by those who take the ideas of the newspapers, rewrite our journalists' words to be miraculously their own words, and then put it on a blog or a broadcast piece and call that journalism."
No, your value isn't diminished in such scenarios -- it's increased. Otherwise, why would anyone want to use your work as a basis of their own. If you can't monetize being first and having all the contacts and the details, doesn't that suggest a problem with your own ways of trying to monetize, rather than with what your competitors are doing?

Even worse, Hopkins claims that YouTube's recent agreement with PRS over music hosted on YouTube should serve as a model for newspapers to get paid. I had suggested earlier, that Google's willingness to "cave" on some of these sorts of deals was only going to cause more problems, as more companies and industries would all start assuming that Google owed them money too -- using the examples of where Google paid others as evidence. Unfortunately, it looks like that was correct.

34 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
argentina, bandana, liability, search engines

Companies:
google, yahoo



Google, Yahoo Fined In Argentina Because Searches On Band Name Leads To Porn Sites

from the liability-screwup dept

Reader Osno points us to the latest in misplaced liability rulings... this time in Argentina. Apparently both Google and Yahoo have been fined (Google translation) approximately $15,000 (US) after a lawsuit from a member of a popular reality show band accused both search engines of leading people to pornographic websites when people searched on her name. This reminds me of a similar lawsuit in the US, that is still ongoing and seems unlikely to get very far. It's difficult to see how a search engine can be responsible for what others put up on a porn site, or the fact that a search on someone's name leads people to a porn site. But... apparently that's what the judge in Argentina decided. There's a separate jurisdiction issue here as well, since neither Google nor Yahoo have operations in Argentina. Either way, it's expected that the companies will appeal, and hopefully the higher level courts will recognize that this shouldn't be a search engine's liability.

21 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
clipping service, copyright, europe, search engines, snippets, transient use



Did European Court Just Make Search Engines Illegal? 11-Word Snippet Can Be Copyright Infringement

from the bad-bad-bad-bad dept

With the AP being out there claiming that fair use only covers snippets fewer than five words, there are some questions about where the boundaries for "fair use" of "snippets" lies. Unfortunately, a new ruling in Europe seems to be pretty extreme (in a bad way). The ruling found that a snippet as short as eleven words could be copyright infringement. The case involved a clipping service, that would scan in articles (from print publications) and then would give clients very short snippets that highlighted the keywords they were monitoring. In many ways, this sounds like the physical equivalent of any online search engine. The clipping company claimed that it was legal because it was "transient," but the court said that since the service printed the output on paper, it was "permanent." Yikes.

While the online world is a little different, it's not too difficult to see how someone could make a case that a search engine is doing the identical thing to what the clipping company was doing here, and the question of whether or not the result is "transient" or "permanent" is entirely dependent on the end-user -- which was part of why the court found paper to be permanent:

"Since the data capture process is apparently not likely itself to destroy that medium, the deletion of that reproduction is entirely dependent on the will of the user of that process. It is not at all certain that he will want to dispose of the reproduction, which means that there is a risk that the reproduction will remain in existence for a longer period, according to the user's needs,"
Certainly, you could say the same thing about a search engine result (the end-user could certainly store them -- or [gasp!] print them), and then you've got the same problem. No matter how you look at it, this is a bad ruling. It makes little sense from the perspective of publishers, clipping services, users or the entire online world.

34 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
algorithms, entitlement, search, search engines, sem, seo, transparency

Companies:
google



Isn't There Something Ironic In An Anonymous Exec Demanding Transparency From Google?

from the entitlement-culture dept

It really is amazing sometimes to see how many people think that Google "owes" them something. For example, we've had a few different stories about companies suing Google because they don't like how Google ranks them. That makes little sense. Google doesn't owe anyone a spot in its index. It determines its index by figuring out what it thinks people will like best, and it's always tweaking it. If it fails to figure that out properly and someone else (like Microsoft) does figure it out, then Google will lose business. So, it seems a bit odd that some anonymous "well known exec at one of the largest sites on the Internet" is suddenly demanding transparency into how Google ranks content, suggesting that it's somehow unfair and arbitrary in its rankings -- and only by opening up the details of its algorithm will "fairness" be restored.

Ryan, who alerted us to this story, has written up a biting, but reasonable, response, where he notes that being ranked highly in Google is no one's right. And demanding that Google be transparent about its algorithm is meaningless (while being especially ironic, given that this "well-known exec" is demanding transparency while wanting to remain anonymous himself). The key point Ryan makes:

You want an algorithm, here it is:
1.) Sites that are useful to visitors will rank high.
2.) Popular sites that are useful to visitors will rank higher.
3.) Sites that don't offer any value to the web or are irrelevant to the query won't rank well.
4.) Sites that are harmful or spammy won't be included in the index.

Seriously, that's Google’s algorithm in plain English. There's your disclosure. The weighting factors and code behind it don't matter -- these principles are all you really need to know.
Indeed. Create useful sites with useful content that people use, and don't be spammy, and you'll most likely rank well in Google. You don't need to force Google to reveal the nuts and bolts of its algorithm. That doesn't change anything. If you're trying to craft your websites to the specifics of the algorithm, you're already lost. If you're creating websites that match the "plain English" code above, you're going to be just fine.

54 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
content, copyright, search engines

Companies:
scopelight



Can Someone Please Tell Us How You Determine What's A 'Legal' Search Engine From An 'Illegal' One?

from the is-it-like-obscenity? dept

I've had a lot of trouble with courts around the globe pinning blame on search engines for what they find, using a questionable interpretation of the law for "contributory" infringement or "inducing" infringement. Such things leave open such a wide spectrum of questions, it basically puts any search engine at risk. People have questioned in the past why Google isn't targeted the same way The Pirate Bay or Torrentspy were, because functionally they're doing the same thing: they index information and help people find it. Of course, some will say that The Pirate Bay is somehow guilty because of the way it acts towards copyright holders, but since when has attitude changed whether the same action is legal or illegal?

Either way it's beginning to feel like judges are determining what is and what is not contributory infringement in the same way "obscenity" is determined, using Justice Potter Stewart's famous "I know it when I see it" test. This is a bad thing, because while some may claim the extremes are clear (which is certainly questionable) there's a large gray area in the middle that is completely unclear. And having a huge unclear gray area means a lot of potential liability on innovators -- leading fewer people to innovate. And that's undeniably bad.

Take for example, the situation going on in the UK, where Anton Benjamin Vickerman and his wife Kelly-Anne Vickerman decided to do something that makes a lot of sense: create a search engine for videos online, indexing a variety of different sites. This was as a part of their company Scopelight, and the search engine itself was called Surfthechannel. This is certainly a useful product. But, of course, the search engine's algorithm has no way of knowing if that video has been put up by the copyright holder on purpose or if it's unauthorized. Even more tricky, how does it determine fair use? So, it did the reasonable thing: it includes everything. Lots of the videos are legal. Plenty are potentially unauthorized. Apparently that wasn't good enough for a UK-based anti-piracy group UK-FACT, who had Scopelight's premises raided, claiming the site is illegal, since people can find unauthorized content via it. Of course, you can find unauthorized content on Google as well.

But you know who's liable for that? Whoever actually put it online. Not the search engine that pointed you to it.

UK-FACT was unable to get criminal charges filed against SurfTheChannel, but no matter, a civil case has been filed instead. So, once again, a judge is going to have to determine why a third party website can be guilty of others' infringement based on a highly subjective "I know it when I see it" set of reasons. This is a bad deal for everyone.

83 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Say That Again

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
journalism, les hinton, newspapers, search engines, traffic

Companies:
dow jones, google



According To WSJ, Google Not Just A 'Thief' But A 'Digital Vampire'

from the oh-please dept

There's an absolutely huge business out there of folks trying to get more traffic from Google, called Search Engine Optimization. It's a big deal. Traffic to your website is the lifeblood of most internet business models, and so any way to get more traffic is a good thing. Except if you're in the newspaper business for some reason. Lately we keep seeing odd stories of newspaper business folks complaining about the fact that Google sends them traffic. The latest? Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton, who called Google a "digital vampire" claiming that it's "sucking the blood" out of the newspaper industry (found via Mathew Ingram). He then goes on to suggest that at least some of this is the newspapers' own fault for giving "Google's fangs a great place to bite."

So, uh, Mr. Hinton, here's a suggestion: there's a little thing called robots.txt. You can block Google from indexing your websites. Then everyone's happy, right? That stops the bloodflow right there.

Except, perhaps the real issues is that, as everyone in every other business seems to recognize, traffic is important, and it's up to the website receiving that traffic to capitalize on it. So, either Hinton doesn't know this, or he's simply lying. Neither one makes Dow Jones look particularly smart.

40 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
censorship, china, search engines

Companies:
google



Dear China: It's Not Google That Is Producing Or Hosting Porn

from the understanding-how-the-internet-works-is-useful dept

We've noted in the past that the Great Firewall of China basically works via a threat model. Basically, the government tells ISPs that if they fail to block "undesirable" content, then they'll get in trouble. Then, they may get notes about what type of content is "undesirable" but for the most part it's left up to them to figure it out, but if any "bad stuff" gets through, they know they can get in trouble, so they tend to overblock. Earlier this year, China warned various search engines that they too needed to comply with such rules, and that it was upset that people could find "bad stuff" via those search engines.

Apparently Google didn't pay enough attention, because the Chinese gov't has "disabled" parts of Google in China because (they claim) people can still access pornographic content (and other "undesirable" content, one imagines). However, what's interesting is the assumption that links on Google represent content Google has control over. As one of our readers, Ben, points out, it appears that the Chinese gov't regularly implies that Google "owns" the content that it links to:

The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, had criticized the search engine for its erotic content and threatened punishment from the government. The group had said that Google had already been warned twice, in January and April, about its content.
And there you have the problem. The content isn't Google's and it makes no sense to claim that it is or to punish Google's spiders for finding and indexing it.

27 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
bittorrent, netherlands, search engines

Companies:
brein, minivoa



Entertainment Industry Pushes To Make Mininova Useless

from the it's-a-search-engine dept

Mininova, the latest BitTorrent search engine to raise the ire of the entertainment industry is currently engaged in a court battle with BREIN, an anti-piracy organization, in the Netherlands. Apparently, BREIN is making a variety of highly questionable demands of Mininova, including that it be responsible for installing filters to block certain content (at Mininova's own expense) and that it stop indexing torrents from trackers that allow public uploads. In other words: even if Mininova is considered a search engine, the industry hopes that it can set the rules of what can and cannot be searched. Hopefully the court sees through these arguments. Separately, the article appears to report that BREIN made false statements, including the idea that famed BitTorrent uploader aXXO had been given "VIP" status on the site. The only problem? Mininova offers no such thing. So which is more unethical? Creating a search engine for certain types of files, some of which may be infringing? Or lying in court?

34 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Politics

Politics

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
search engines, tax, uk

Companies:
google



UK Gov't Considers Google Tax?

from the but-why? dept

Calvin was the first of a few folks to send in this story about how some in the UK gov't are discussing a series of different proposals to raise tax revenue to pay for the production of news programs on TV, with one option being creating a search engine tax, directed at Google. It seems that basically everyone admits there's no actual justification for the tax other than "Google is making a lot of money, and we need that money." Of course, it's worth pointing out that it sounds like the discussions are still quite preliminary and there are plenty who don't think it's a very good idea. The same group has also been tossing around suggestions for a broadband tax or a digital download tax that would be used in the same manner. Considering how early on the discussions are, it doesn't seem like much to get worked up about, but it is quite silly that this is even up for discussion in the first place. As people point out in the article, this would be taxing a successful growing company, helping to slow down its growth, to help fund an operation that hasn't been growing. That doesn't seem likely to help the economy very much.

31 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Say That Again

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
copyright, search engines, torrents

Companies:
google, the pirate bay



Google Denies Similarities To The Pirate Bay

from the good-luck-with-that dept

There's been a lot of talk recently from supporters of The Pirate Bay about how the ruling against the site is bad news for Google, because that site can be used just like The Pirate Bay -- and plenty of folks have set up custom searches via Google's tools that limit search results to Torrent files. A Google representative from Italy has finally spoken up about this, claiming (as did the entertainment industry at the trial) that Google is different because it actually honors takedown requests, unlike The Pirate Bay, who tends to ridicule takedown requests. It is, in fact, true, that this is a difference, though in real terms in means very little, since content taken down seems to reappear pretty quickly elsewhere. But if that's the only point of differentiation, it raises additional questions of why the law should state that a company in one industry needs to protect the business models of companies in another industry. From a technical perspective, what the two sites do is quite similar: point you to locations where you can find the content you want. Neither breaks copyright law specifically itself.

Some say that Google's willingness to take down links, compared to The Pirate Bay's decision to flaunt them, shows something about intent, and suggests The Pirate Bay team is guilty of some sort of contributory copyright infringement, in "inducing" or encouraging people to break copyright law, but it's quite troubling when someone can be blamed for a crime not for actually committing it, but for producing the technological tools that make the crime possible. What you're left with is a judgment call on intent, and that's particularly troubling when it comes to tools, where part of the interest for the toolmakers is in just enabling technology to do what it can. Suddenly enabling something that disrupts another's business model by creating a more economical and efficient system shouldn't be considered illegal. It's what we normally call progress.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
News You Could Do Without

News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
file sharing, search engines

Companies:
google, the pirate bay



Press Finally Realizing That Google Can Do Anything The Pirate Bay Did

from the nice-victory dept

With the entertainment industry all excited about the supposed "win" in The Pirate Bay case in Sweden, it appears that some in the media are recognizing what plenty of people have been pointing out for years: you can find most of the same stuff via Google. This was actually a point brought up during the trial, to which the industry responded that Google took down links on request -- which is true, but doesn't change the fact that similar links pop back up just as quickly. At some point, eventually, you'll have to believe that the industry will go after Google for this, and Google will have a much stronger defense. It certainly doesn't violate the Grokster made-up "inducement" standard. It's pretty clearly protected by DMCA safe harbors otherwise. So, what will the industry come up with next? It'll be some novel legal theory, certainly, but somehow it won't be a novel business model. The industry doesn't do that sorta thing.

27 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
News You Could Do Without

News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
ads, news, newspapers, search engines

Companies:
google, yahoo



The Vastly Different Approaches Of Google And Yahoo When It Comes To Newspapers

from the strategy-shift dept

About a month ago, Google dumped its program to try to help sell newspaper ads, admitting that it had been something of a failure. It wasn't a huge surprise why. Google entered the space assuming that it could reform the newspaper ad business the same way it revolutionized the online ad business. But it neglected to realize some of the massive differences in the markets. Meanwhile, the NY Times is noting that Yahoo's much more collaborative approach to newspapers is actually a shining success story for both Yahoo and its newspaper partners. Rather than trying to revolutionize the entire market, Yahoo is simply working within the process by which newspapers already sell print ads, to add targeted online advertisements as well. And it's working amazingly well.

In the meantime, with Google dropping its newspaper ad sales effort, it seems to be going to the other extreme: it finally started putting advertisements on Google News. For years, whenever angry newspaper insiders would complain about how Google News was somehow "profiting" off of their hard work, people would respond that Google didn't even put any advertisements on its news search engine. However, now that this has changed, pretty much everyone is expecting lawsuits to follow. Personally, I can't see how the newspapers would win such a lawsuit (and, think that they have much more important issues to spend money on), but given Google's willingness to cave to book publishers and authors, you can bet some newspaper publishers are hoping that Google will be forced to throw money in their direction as well.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Overhype

Overhype

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
eu, france, search engines, seo, tourism

Companies:
google



Google So Dominant That A French Town Might Need To Change Its Name?

from the or-hire-some-better-seo? dept

Apparently, the French coastal town of Eu is so upset that people can't find the town via a Google search, that it's considering changing its name. The mayor of the town is quite concerned about how this is impacting the town's tourism business -- which does show the cultural dominance of Google, these days, on some things. Of course, as the article notes, a search on Eu french town turns up plenty of results -- though, even those are currently dominated by stories like this one about the name search. Perhaps the town just needs to hire better SEO experts...

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
censorship, china, great firewall, search engines

Companies:
baidu, google



Internet Companies Apologize To China For Being Too Good

from the in-the-future,-we'll-miss-more-stuff dept

We noted that the Chinese government had called out a bunch of search engines for allowing access to porn recently, and I find it amusing to see that pretty much all of the search engines called out have issued apologies. What I'm wondering is exactly what are they apologizing for? The fact that other people put pornography online? The fact that they're too good as search engines and are able to find that content?

56 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
china, great firewall, guilt, search engines

Companies:
baidu, google



China Adds Search Engines To Its Censorship-By-Guilt Plan; How Will Google Respond?

from the fix-it-yourselves dept

It's well known that the Great Firewall censorship brigade in China employs tens of thousands of people monitoring what's said across the internet -- but perhaps far more effective has been the fear factor imposed on various ISPs by the government threatening them with punishment, if they don't ban unacceptable content. Of course, the government doesn't define what exactly is unacceptable, leading the ISPs to over-ban in order to protect themselves. Mostly, this effort has focused on internet access providers, but it looks like the government is now expanding it to search engines as well, after the government publicly named and shamed both Google and Baidu for failing to prevent access to "undesirable" content such as pornography.

This may prove to be an interesting test for Google, which was widely criticized for its original move into China, whereby it agreed to block content as designated by the Chinese government -- while alerting users to the fact that the content is blocked. That was Google's way of striking a compromise, while trying to call attention to the censorship (perhaps in the hope that it would eventually cause the policy to be changed). However, if Google is now getting pressure to be more proactive in determining what's "unacceptable," rather than just blocking specific content designated by the government, things could get a lot trickier for Google. Of course, some might point out that this was the slippery slope that Google put itself on when it first made the deal to get into China.

9 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
argentina, celebrities, liability, safe harbors, search engines

Companies:
google, yahoo



Argentinian Celebrities Succeed In Forcing Search Engines To Block Search Results On Their Name

from the internet-stupidity dept

Proving, once again, that common sense isn't so common, News.com is reporting on a series of orders handed down by judges in Argentina that have forced Google and Yahoo to completely block searches on certain Argentinian celebrities. Apparently, some Argentinian models who were upset that their pictures were showing up on some porn sites, sued both Yahoo and Google. For anyone who understands just about anything about how the internet works, it would be easy to recognize that this lawsuit was grossly mistargeted. Yahoo and Google have nothing to do with the content on the various websites they point to, but apparently Argentinian models and judges do not seem to recognize this.

So, the judges issued an injunction, demanding that Google and Yahoo block references to the models. This "win" caused other Argentinian celebrities who were upset with content online about them to seek out the same lawyer, who filed similar lawsuits over and over again. Each time, the court has issued an injunction, forcing Google and Yahoo to block results on those individuals. In some cases, they've tried to block specific results, but in at least one case, Yahoo has blocked all results on a search for Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona. The blocks only impact the Argentinian sites, but it still seems fairly ridiculous.

Google is appealing the injunctions, saying that this really seems like something of a shakedown. The company is also trying to explain to the Argentinian government why it should put in place safe harbor laws that protect service providers from being liable for the content created by others. Of course, even without such laws in place, common sense should prevail. Apparently, though, common sense remains less common than commonly believed.

14 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
search engines

Companies:
google



Reminder: Google Is An MP3 Search Engine Too

from the as-if-you-didn't-know-that dept

We've pointed out many times in the past that the various Torrent tracker sites out there that the entertainment industry is suing are not particularly different than Google. All of them are search engines and can find unauthorized music for you. Some entertainment industry defenders get upset by this argument pointing out that Google's search isn't just designed for such files, but that's rather meaningless. A bunch of folks have been submitting a story from about a month ago (which is probably getting attention now because it made it to Digg's front page) about how easy it is to find MP3s on Google with some basic querying. This isn't new, and I doubt many people really needed this article to understand how to do this, but it does highlight the same point. If Google is equally as effective as various torrent trackers in finding unauthorized content, why aren't the entertainment industry giants suing Google for the same thing?

17 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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