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US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

arstechnica.com

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Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#161

Post by dedward »

maratd wrote: post #30
lukesandberg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is cowardly for Google to obey the law and court orders. At least they publish information about this kind of activity http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/...

> I don't think it is cowardly for Google to obey the law and court orders. I do. I would never comply with any government request unless it was preceded by a court order. And if a court order had been obtained, I would use common sense to determine if the request should be granted. Anything less IS cowardly. If you don't stand up to abuse, the abuse will simply continue.

You would a good lawyer too.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#162

Post by maratd »

rbanffy wrote: post #151
maratd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an idea. Ignore them. Let them enforce their own edicts, rulings, and laws. If enough people disobey, it becomes impossible to enforce. That's why civil disobedience works. Now, if Google grew a pair and told the judge to get lost ... well ... I'll be mighty impressed and they would earn my respect.

The larger you are, the harder it gets to disobey their rulings. Google can fight if the ruling is illegal or obviously unfair, but they can't hide and pretend it's not with them after being mentioned.

> The larger you are, the harder it gets to disobey their rulings.

Imagine Google replacing google.com with a clear statement denouncing a particular government action and naming names? Imagine Google de-indexing the government instead? They have so many more options available quite simply because they have such massive exposure.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#163

Post by joejohnson »

JonnieCache wrote: post #33
danilocampos wrote: post #9

Look. I know it's HN and we're all very serious business here. And I'm not trying to be age-ist – my condemnation is strictly confined to mental state. But what. the fuck . do we do with these dinosaurs who know nothing of technology policy but have decided to go and make it anyway ? What do we do? The strategy of waiting for them to retire or whatever doesn't seem to be paying off.

We need to invent the following things so we can be forever truly free: 1) A secure, peer to peer DNS system with no registrars and a dynamic, heterarchical network of trust. 2) An encrypted version of TCP that we can drop in without anyone noticing. 3) A way of distributing keys for our encrypted transport layer without certificate authorities and again with a dynamic, heterarchical network of trust. 4) A secure, pe…

I think that 1-3 are necessities now. I don't know if 4 is.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#164

Post by gte910h »

maratd wrote: post #162
rbanffy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The larger you are, the harder it gets to disobey their rulings. Google can fight if the ruling is illegal or obviously unfair, but they can't hide and pretend it's not with them after being mentioned.

> The larger you are, the harder it gets to disobey their rulings. Imagine Google replacing google.com with a clear statement denouncing a particular government action and naming names? Imagine Google de-indexing the government instead? They have so many more options available quite simply because they have such massive exposure.

Instead? No. Also? Sure!

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#165

Post by dekz »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #99
angersock wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't suggest that we need a social network, but your first suggestion isn't too far from the truth. The exact thing needed is very boring, very low-level, and very unsexy, and I believe can be summarized thusly: We need a method for locating hosts on a network graph which does not have a central point of failure and which cannot be easily disabled. We then need a method for authentically routing messages back a…

If only. Unfortunately, it's not like that. With how well the "internet" is established, this is one case of NOT build it and they will come. You can build it, but it'll never gain the authority to make everyone use it. You'll need to be a Google or Microsoft to pull this one off.

Just like bittorrent required Microsoft and Google to become popular? I think you're underestimating the value younger generations hold to free as in speech.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#166

Post by rbanffy »

gte910h wrote: post #164
maratd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The larger you are, the harder it gets to disobey their rulings. Imagine Google replacing google.com with a clear statement denouncing a particular government action and naming names? Imagine Google de-indexing the government instead? They have so many more options available quite simply because they have such massive exposure.

Instead? No. Also? Sure!

Voluntarily delisting something is unthinkable. It would violate the most basic principle for a search engine - to present the information without distortion.

Voluntary censorship is a step too far.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#167

Post by anigbrowl »

tsunamifury wrote: post #88
zeteo wrote: post #70

It's very unlikely that this article is correct. Here is the legal ruling: http://servingnotice.com/sdv/038%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Se... This is a temporary restraining order. Chanel is posting a bond for any damages to the defendants, should the trial prove them innocent. Regarding de-indexing, there is only one paragraph (10) which says the domains "shall immediately be de-indexed and/or removed", without specify…

Right, so couldn't this order more resonably be interpreted by saying the web sites need to post no-robots in their meta info to delist themselves rather than Google having to do it? More like, stop having yourself indexed rather than de-indexing.

Correct.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#168

Post by SquareWheel »

libraryatnight wrote: post #116
lkrubner wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't government simply ban the whole thing? Consider ham radio: my dad used to be really into it, and it doesn't cost much to get into it. But the government can scare away a lot of people from it, simply with the distant threat of some kind of punishment. So most people do it the legal way, at which point it becomes a big hassle - tests and certificates. And as soon as tests and certificates are needed, most…

It's funny you mention the illegal radio. All of this end of the internet reading I've been doing had me wondering the other night, if things get really bad, will those savvy enough build their own underground network? Pirate Internet could breed some interesting communities.

How far off is that from the deep net? It's all based on tor (and as such is slow as molasses), but it's navigated by passing links to community members - not searching Google.

That's pretty darn underground.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#169

Post by anigbrowl »

jcr wrote: post #103
ajross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appeal to a higher court. Courts make mistakes. The system is designed to handle that. Let it work. Relax, basically. This won't stand. That's not to say you're going to agree with everything the higher courts do (c.f. the Citizens United ruling, yada yada). But you can be sure that smart people will look at the problem. Silliness like this won't stand.

I totally agree with you on letting the courts work, but you're missing an important point; who will pay to fight it through the higher courts? We already know the court proceedings were "one-sided" so it's safe to assume no one showed up to defend themselves. For the sake of argument, let's assume the seized domains were actually selling copied goods. Whether one considers copied goods to be good or bad is irrelevan…

With this said, why should the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other other for-profit entities bear the costs of a protracted legal battle through the higher courts? Additionally, why should they bear the costs of compliance with the court orders?

They don't. That task falls upon the new administrators (ICE), just as it would fall upon you if you bought a competitor and wanted to power down their brand. Chanel's obligation to post a $20k bond is to cover the risk of an accidental infringement upon legitimate operations, a possible reversal if any defendants come forward and make a credible case (unlikely, but possible), or expenses incurred by the government in course of administering the shutdown of those internet entities that are infringing upon Chanel's brand.

Re: US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook

#170

Post by anigbrowl »

danilocampos wrote: post #9

Look. I know it's HN and we're all very serious business here. And I'm not trying to be age-ist – my condemnation is strictly confined to mental state. But what. the fuck . do we do with these dinosaurs who know nothing of technology policy but have decided to go and make it anyway ? What do we do? The strategy of waiting for them to retire or whatever doesn't seem to be paying off.

But what. the fuck. do we do with these dinosaurs who know nothing of technology policy but have decided to go and make it anyway?

The same thing as all the folks who know nothing of legal procedure but have decided to go ahead and condemn it anyway? Sorry to be blunt, but I'm with zeteo in thinking that both Ars and the blogger they cite have misinterpreted this ruling, and in being disappointed at the lack of contextual information on how the law works in this area. This is no more an attack on the internet than impounding a criminal's car is an attack on the motor industry.

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