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

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

#21

Post by OstiaAntica »

electromagnetic wrote: post #12

I'm waiting for the day that a 15 year old files a patent on a new style of Capri's and ends up owning Levi, Wrangler, etc. for selling counterfeit products. Oh wait, that would never happen. (Incidentally in about 98, before capri's got fashionable again, my friend took to folding and stitching her jeans, in a few weeks all the girls were doing it throughout the summer; about 4 years later she was pissed when Levi a…

You can't copyright or trademark a fashion pattern, like your friend's jeans.

Fake products using a trademarked name is a different matter-- they are of inferior quality, and widespread distribution seriously damages the legitimate brand.

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

#22

Post by dchest »

Reading this order: http://www.scribd.com/doc/73773870/Chanel-Inc-v-Does-11-Cv-0... I wonder who is responsible for de-indexing and/or removing the domain names?

Other points begin with "Plaintiffs shall...", "Defendants shall...", but in this point there's no party stated that must do the action:

"The Group II Subject Domain Names shall immediately be de-indexed and/or removed from any search results pages of all Internet search engines including, but not limited to, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and all social media websites including, but not limited to, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter until otherwise instructed by this Court or Plaintiff that any such domain name is authorized to be reinstated, at which time it shall be reinstated to its former status within each search engine index from which it was removed."

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

#23

Post by maratd »

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.

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.

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

#24

Post by rhizome »

yolesaber wrote: post #15
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 can be done is encouraging more engineers and scientists to run for offices in the United States Government.

The US electoral process is prejudiced against any candidate with skills other than "people skills." Anybody who campaigns on a platform even implying the advantage of intelligence will be cast as an elitist. Boom, campaign-headshot.

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

#25

Post by rick888 »

electromagnetic wrote: post #12

I'm waiting for the day that a 15 year old files a patent on a new style of Capri's and ends up owning Levi, Wrangler, etc. for selling counterfeit products. Oh wait, that would never happen. (Incidentally in about 98, before capri's got fashionable again, my friend took to folding and stitching her jeans, in a few weeks all the girls were doing it throughout the summer; about 4 years later she was pissed when Levi a…

"I dislike the whole anti-counterfeit programs because companies want you to spend $2000 for a leather bag with their name on it, but the bag is only really worth $20. They're not even complaining that you're not willing to pay for it (like pirating a movie), they're complaining because you're unwilling to spend a massively unreasonable amount on it."

This just isn't true. Many times, the $20 bag uses inferior materials and doesn't go through the quality checks of the bigger companies. It's also about brand name. Some brands are worth more than others.

"There's no reason to target the counterfeitters as they're not hurting your business model. They're selling to people who know they're getting ripped off, but Gucci and what not are selling it to rich idiots who don't know they're getting ripped off."

It does hurt their business model. There are many people selling counterfeits as the original. If the company does nothing about it, people will not only expect to get it at the cheaper price in the future, but will complain if the quality sucks or it falls apart after a few weeks of use, which will hurt the companies image.

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

#26

Post by lukesandberg »

maratd wrote: post #23
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.

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.

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/...

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

#27

Post by cube13 »

Sigh. This is pretty much a classic case of "THE INTERNET IS NEW AND SCARY".

Assuming that Charnel's claims are accurate(that counterfeit goods were being sold), then the standard procedure 20 years ago would have been to work with law enforcement and the courts. If the defendants were found guilty, the counterfeit goods would be seized and profits off of them would be awarded to Charnel. With the invention of the Internet, the exact same thing should have happened. Charnel should have worked with law enforcement and the courts, and if the defendants were found guilty, the goods should have been seized, and the story should have ended. In either case, it would take a while(especially if the shops were in countries that had very lax copyright laws), but there should not have been really any difference between now and 20 years ago.

Only in this case, the judge, in his infinite wisdom, went the "OMG INTERNET IS NEW AND SCARY" route, and decided to just remove the sites from indexes. Aside from the fact that this doesn't actually fix the problem(hello, eBay), this is a pretty new(and dumb) "solution" to a pretty settled problem.

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

#28

Post by angli »

mindstab wrote: post #7

Is there really infrastructure available for this yet? Also "All Internet search engines"... Possibly the judge underestimates how many there are out there who will never even hear of this ruling without horrible SOPA legislature and infrastructure in place. Till then they can't seriously expect random search engine in my bedroom to track all legal rulings in this space. This is fantastically impossible. And it raise…

I'm totally against the idea to begin with, but wouldn't it just be easier to seize the domains and have them redirect to the "proper" site? Why get the search engines involved at all?

On a related note, does it become in the social/search/social search giants' interest to take on the cases and attempt to overturn these decisions at some point? It would provide better results, for one, as well as lessen the technical burden of suppressing these sites.

I expect that the times we live in are ultimately going to be a "trial by fire" for the tech industry. The result, I think, is probably that Google, Facebook, etc. conduct extensive lobbying, and other massive PR operations, to gain the support of both users and government officials. For the companies of the future though, this is probably great: a Congress where the size, economic impact and mindshare of tech is noted, and laws are passed accordingly.

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

#29

Post by dsplittgerber »

Not to be overly political, but:

This is what you get when you support a modern liberal state. It's always going to over-extend and over-regulate, because that's just the way the bureaucracy works - it's preserving itself by always finding new areas of society and the economy that "just have to be regulated for the common good".

It's a matter of basic principles, really. It's just never going to end unless you stand up for individual freedoms and very limited powers of the state.

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

#30

Post by maratd »

lukesandberg wrote: post #26
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.

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.

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