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Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

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Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#51

Post by rhizome »

jasonlotito wrote: post #7
ludwigvan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it would be welcome, see http://jacobian.org/writing/seo-scumbags/ "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

That's not SEO. That's spam. SEO is about optimizing portions of your website for people using a search engine. Lumping all SEO together is akin to lumping all hackers together as criminals. I equate the techniques to those used in journalism. You want to front load the article with the most important information. The least important information should be at the end.

...or lumping hackers and crackers together as "all hackers."

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#52

Post by rhizome »

omouse wrote: post #44
jbk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is ok, as long as VLC copyright is concerned. However: - Claiming that you are the original Author is not OK, because of copyright laws. - Adding restrictions on the usage of the software is not OK, because of the GPL. - As the VLC installer is GPL, the modified installers must be GPL'd too. - Shipping VLC commercially means shipping all the source code of all external libraries, which they usually don't. (…

Which of those would be okay in a copyright-less world? Which ones are morally/ethically bad (without copyright law)?

There is no "copyright-less world," but pot sure is fun, isn't it?

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#53

Post by drzaiusapelord »

patio11 wrote: post #13
darklajid wrote: post #2

I wonder if there are any SEO people out there, doing pro-bono (is that even the right term?) work for open source projects like this? It should be possible to fight back (or, as was discussed/suggested before, search engines are just broken).

~2 minutes of pro-bono work: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ Put in name of the bad guys. Find the blogs who blogged about their sites. http://webylife.com/design/top-10-brand-logo-mistakes/commen... http://www.dragonblogger.com/entertainment-television/ etc, etc. Contact them, ask them to change the link to the spam site with a link to your site. It's stupid gruntwork, you'll need lots of it, and it will be like pl…

VLC has been linked by high profile sites for many years now. Adding yet another link from "linuxmag" isn't going to help.

The real issue is that the SEO guys are just too good and can poison the well with impunity. I feel only better competition can help this. Maybe the Bing guys can do a better job and eat Google's lunch. Quick search on Bing shows the first few links are legit but the last one isn't (and is identified as adware by our Sonicwall). Also, the ads Bing produces are fake too. Guess no one is doing a good job in this regard. I suspect shit like this is why PC users are clamoring for an "App Store." They need someone to help them properly install software.

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#54

Post by pavel_lishin »

jaehoony wrote: post #30

well, people shouldn't be using crap like VLC in the first place.

Why do you consider VLC crap, and what would you suggest as an alternative? Bonus points if the alternative works on all three operating systems that I use (OS X, Windows XP, Ubuntu.)

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#55

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jbk wrote: post #12
rw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How likely is it that these sites serve up clean binaries to Google's spider?

Quite unlikely, tested with different user-agent, and notably the Google Spider one, but the binaries are almost empty and download other binaries, which might not work for them... Another explanation is that Google doesn't consider those adware and toolbar as malware... I truly don't know.

Although I believe google is in the wrong here, I do also believe that adware/malware prevention should be the responsibility of the end user's machine. What google does is at best sticking its fingers into the dam. We can't expect them to do everything, not to mention business and IP laws in the US are incredibly generous to corporations. The case may be that its legally difficult for Google to attack some of these companies.

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#56

Post by jbk »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #55
jbk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite unlikely, tested with different user-agent, and notably the Google Spider one, but the binaries are almost empty and download other binaries, which might not work for them... Another explanation is that Google doesn't consider those adware and toolbar as malware... I truly don't know.

Although I believe google is in the wrong here, I do also believe that adware/malware prevention should be the responsibility of the end user's machine. What google does is at best sticking its fingers into the dam. We can't expect them to do everything, not to mention business and IP laws in the US are incredibly generous to corporations. The case may be that its legally difficult for Google to attack some of these…

Well, here, they get money from the adwords... So they are a bit responsable.

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#57

Post by georgemcbay »

zenspunk wrote: post #34
jbk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is Google meant to run a background check on each and every report? Yes. They get money from advertisement, they should check reports. > does this not put Google at risk of being sued by the removed advertiser? No. If Google ToS banishes copyright infrigement, they can remove advertisers without questionning. > or, if Google wrongfully removes a legitimate advertiser, does this not put them at risk of being sued? S…

>Yes. They get money from advertisement, they should check reports. I don't see how one implies the other. Drug companies get money from selling ingredients for makeshift heroin, they should stop its use? > CA, USA, of course. And which laws? Should they block advertisers of euthanasia? Political groups? "Terrorist" groups? This is a very slippery slope. > How do they solve spam on gmail? No, if I were to submit many…

> Drug companies get money from selling ingredients for makeshift heroin, they should stop its use?

No, but if they receive credible reports that Joe Drugdealer is is using their ingredients to make makeshift heroin, they should look into those claims before directly selling their ingredients to Joe Drugdealer in the future. That's a more apt analogy to the situation we're discussing here.

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#58

Post by gaius »

scott_s wrote: post #43
gaius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, of course they do, but only so you'll come back and can be shown more ads. And "incentive" is quite literal: ads are Google's main (only?) revenue stream. If they don't get eyeballs, they have no inventory of product to sell to their real customers. Look, I'm not saying this is good or bad. But it is what it is.

Well, you're saying "it is what it is," but you're only providing arguments, not evidence. I think rryan has presented actual evidence in the form of how Google is structured.

But don't you see that if Google sells no ads, those people working to make your search better don't get paid either?

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#59

Post by scott_s »

gaius wrote: post #58
scott_s wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're saying "it is what it is," but you're only providing arguments, not evidence. I think rryan has presented actual evidence in the form of how Google is structured.

But don't you see that if Google sells no ads, those people working to make your search better don't get paid either?

I can see that, but you're making the fundamental mistake that just because something is plausible that it is actually happening. There's enough moving parts here that arguments are not sufficient.

Re: Companies that make money by distributing misleading versions of VLC

#60

Post by webylife »

darklajid wrote: post #2

I wonder if there are any SEO people out there, doing pro-bono (is that even the right term?) work for open source projects like this? It should be possible to fight back (or, as was discussed/suggested before, search engines are just broken).

hi guys, I am the owner of the blog, webylife.com if you have any problem with the any link just get in touch with me would be happy to help you out you can shoot me a mail at nikunj.tamboli @ gmail .com
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