I heard some people at a coffee shop today discussing the possibility of convincing facebook and google to shut down all of their services for a day because of SOPA, including google apps. While the anarchist in me was momentarily giddy at the whole idea, the realist makes me assume that there must be SLAs and service contracts for their commercial customers and their larger content providers and advertising partners. As awesome as it would be for Google to shut down everything and confuse the heck out of the world I'm sure the losses due to lawsuits and SLA fines would be massive.
Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
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Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#2I was wondering about this, too, if some people won't just sue Google.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#3Wouldn't there be lawsuits against Google when content is taken down to comply with SOPA and other anti-Internet bills? Not to mention extra costs in complying, both in reputation loss and revenue.
I believe they will run it by the legal team anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#4I think their most effective move would be to black out google.com search, because that's what most people see. I see diminishing returns in shutting down their advertising and enterprise services.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#5They are obviously not going to willingly violate any SLAs. Also the gov't is never going to shut down Google. Their site being offline would not be an accurate preview of any blackouts to come. SOPA is going to cost google money and headaches because they will have to deal with so many upset users. It is our websites that don't have billions of dollars that are actually under threat of being completely shutdown.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#6If Google does indeed do a complete blackout, it will cause chaos. Many people pay for Google services, many people use Google APIs. Then again a draconian bill like SOPA / PIPA may call for drastic measures such as a Google blackout.
I do feel that Google (along with other major Internet companies) should take a more active approach in opposing SOPA.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#7Separate from contractual issues, the cost in terms of lost revenue for Google would be enormous. I suspect Google would have more of a positive effect donating a day's profits to the right organizations/candidates.
This 'race-to-imagine-the-most-widespread-blackout' can make people giddy, with thoughts of solidarity and grand symbolic gestures. But giddy is not necessarily effective or lasting.
Shoot for an obtrusive anti-SOPA Google doodle – with links to both examples of government-takedowns gone-mad worldwide, and ways to fight SOPA. That'd make more sense (and might convince more 'normals') than a showy bit of profit-destroying self-flagellation.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#8I doubt they'll really black it out. However, I could see them doing a doodle or something like that.
Or maybe they could have something that draws black censor bars all over random words in your results that fade away after a few seconds and put up a link explaining what's wrong? That would be relatively easy, especially for Google.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#9I think their most effective move would be to black out google.com search, because that's what most people see. I see diminishing returns in shutting down their advertising and enterprise services.
I don't see how the API's would be affected in any way. They wouldn't shut down all their servers to do this. They'd just have to take down their home page and replace it with something else, like a message against SOPA. Only Google.com users wouldn't be able to use it.
Re: Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?
#10Separate from contractual issues, the cost in terms of lost revenue for Google would be enormous. I suspect Google would have more of a positive effect donating a day's profits to the right organizations/candidates. This 'race-to-imagine-the-most-widespread-blackout' can make people giddy, with thoughts of solidarity and grand symbolic gestures. But giddy is not necessarily effective or lasting. Shoot for an obtrusiv…
I certainly am not giddy about reddit being down for a day, or the thought that HN, Google or Facebook would follow suit. For me, it's desperation.