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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

#171

Post by superuser2 »

lkrubner wrote: post #96
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…

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…

RF is a shared resource. So are roads. Requiring proof of competency to operate nontrivial equipment that uses and can cause DoS or physical harm to people on shared resources is perfectly reasonable.

My dad and several of my friends have HAM licenses. It's not inordinately difficult; it's kind of like getting a driver's license. The structure is not designed to prevent ordinary people from using it, just to keep it usable and reasonably civil.

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

#172

Post by marshray »

jcr wrote: post #127
marshray wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? 1. Because they pull down boatloads of money doing business on the internet and it's the right thing to do for them to help defend it. 2. Because they depend on the stable operation of the Internet for their business, in particular: A. the stabili…

I pretty much agree with you on both counts, but as a for-profit entity, it's a matter of financial math rather than "doing the right thing." If it costs "X" to fight it through the courts, and costs "Y" to implement and maintain the censorship/court-orders, then "Y" has to be greater than "X" (plus long term consequences) for the math to work. If "Y" is substantial, the legal fight can be re-framed as an unfair burd…

but as a for-profit entity, it's a matter of financial math rather than "doing the right thing."

Yes and No, I think.

Yes, a for-profit company is generally required to act in the service of their "financial math". But nothing says they can only consider the immediate short-term (i.e. next quarter) for this math. That short-term-thinking-only is a relatively new concept and the smarter companies don't buy into it.

Consider all the money companies spend on political contributions, appointing former politicians to their board, and paid lobbying in Washington DC. There's usually not an immediate payoff expected for that. They just know it pays well in the long term to fertilize the field, so to speak.

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

#173

Post by marshray »

craigmc wrote: post #142

I liked the use of the "whack a mole" analogy. Here (for those who don't know) is how this industrial-scale counterfeiting scam works: 1. Set up OSCommerce or Magento site with design roughly copied from legit rights owner. 2. Get local 'middleman' to donate paypal account in return for small cut 3. Buy a bucket load of adwords 4. Run massive scale xrumer / scrapebox / etc 'SEO' campaign 5. Repeat thousands of times…

Finally, it is important to realise that this is not a victimless crime. What brought this home to me was a few years back when I overheard a nurse [] excitedly talking about a pair of brand name boots she'd bought on the internet.

"Hardworking baby nurse falls for scam on the internet."

ZOMG That's one of the stupidest justifications for fucking up DNS and censoring the Internet that I've ever heard.

A lot (majority?) of consumers don't realise that for all the brand loyality they might have in respect of Google and Paypal, etc^, they are services that are easily misused by unrelated third parties and so should not be taken as any sort of 'trust mark' in they way that shopping in large well-known department store does.

The nurse controlling your preemie's heart rate monitor is too stupid to know the difference between Google and Nordstrom's.

Oh give me a fucking break.

I had a preemie too. Those nurses are all sharp as tacks. She knew exactly what she was doing.

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

#174

Post by lancewiggs »

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…

Or just use a registrar and top level domain that won't respond to the take-down requests. .nz domains, for example, are protected by a rigorous process in a domain (New Zealand) that prevents this sort of thing.

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

#175

Post by MetallicCloud »

anigbrowl wrote: post #170
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 conte…

I disagree. To extend your analogy, it's like taking a sample of 300 cars, finding that 3 of them need impounding and then locking them all up, leaving the onus on the owner to go through the hassle of getting their car out if they weren't infringing.

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

#176

Post by jeswin »

Let me be the devil's advocate here. If the pricing is more for the exclusivity than its utility, you could argue that counterfeiting diminishes the brand. And while it isn't the general opinion, it is a fair argument.

Isn't this case similar to a DMCA takedown notice? IMO DMCA take-down notices make sense; it puts the onus on the content owner to correctly identify infringement and report to the website. (OTOH, SOPA is ridiculous.)

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

#178

Post by JoshTriplett »

gnaritas wrote: post #78
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you could get the governments to stop making stupid decisions/laws I know we live in an age of hitherto unimagined prosperity and wealth and miracles, but you may be reaching a little too far.

It's not governments that make stupid decisions, it's people; take the decision away from government, and someone else will make those stupid decisions, but stupid they will be.

> It's not governments that make stupid decisions, it's people; take the decision away from government, and someone else will make those stupid decisions, but stupid they will be.

Except that only a government can make me care what they decide.

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

#179

Post by botker »

throwaway81 wrote: post #109
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.

What we need is competition. There needs to be a viable alternative to the US government. Small policy changes or people changes or party changes will not be sufficient. Big changes will not happen without outside competition. Someday, some country is going to recognize that supporting free culture can be a huge competitive advantage. I would like to live in that country. I'd take a pay cut to move there. I think man…

http://seasteading.org/
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