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As a supporter of RTBF, what do you think about its impact on startup search engines? I'm advising a startup in Europe -- 3 people, self-funded -- and am not l

As a supporter of RTBF, what do you think about its impact on startup search engines? I'm advising a startup in Europe -- 3 people, self-funded -- and am not looking forward to them launching and hitting a buzz-saw of RTBF requests.

matt4077 9y ago
That seems like a problem such a startup would love to have. In any case, one cost-saving advice would be to piggy-back on Google's process: simply check if they delisted the search result and follow. I can't think of a specific law this would actually infringe.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Does Google have a public API to check for URL delisting, or are you thinking about bending the search API for that?
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    If I were to try to implement this, I'd safely assume any link I'm asked to delist, Google was also asked to delist. Therefore, if I can't find it in Google Search with a query where the page in question should be the top or only result, it means Google delisted it. That being said, I don't feel anyone should assume Google's decisions are inherently right, and do something just because Google did it.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Google takes active counter-measures against the sort of automated queries that this would involve. It's also against their TOS, and might be considered criminal in some places.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I am not sure how much they need to worry. Bear in mind, they only need to act if they get a request. Consider how successful your startup's search engine would have to be before individuals and companies would start submitting RTBF requests to them! People are worried about how they appear on Google because Google is people's default. (In Europe, Google's somewhere in the 90% of search range, I think, you'd know better than I.) People don't want the first impression people get of them in the world's index to be unfair. That's why RTBF doesn't really even bother removing the original content from the web, they just want Google's index cleaned out. I think if the startup you're advising ever has to seriously worry about RTBF, that startup has already succeeded. (And, as an aside, pass on my best wishes to them. We need more choices in the search space!)
- greglindahl 9y ago
  I'm not so sanguine -- lots of RTBF requests come from aggregators, same as copyright take-down notices. So it's easy to imagine that a startup could start to get a large fraction of the ones sent to google/bing.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Yes, but you have to be on that company's radar, before they add it to the list. (Something unlikely to happen en masse before your startup is large enough to handle it appropriately.) And in the case of copyright takedowns, the extreme volume comes in part from the fact that Google and other companies of that size have even implemented bulk reporting tools explicitly designed to permit requests of that type and volume that the average user, or even corporation, doesn't have access to. I don't know the answers to these, but I'd wonder if RTBF would allow for you to set restrictions on who can submit requests on behalf of who, or the volume permitted by a given reporting entity, or the level of automation permitted in reporting. Presumably the EU would much rather than you make reasoned, well-thought responses to carefully considered and submitted removal requests, over a bulk import/bulk decision process that leads to a lot of incorrect behavior.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Do you have a concrete reason why you think it's unlikely? I have a different opinion about how large a search engine company would have to be before being able to "handle it appropriately", but maybe you have a good argument that trumps my experiences.
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        I don't think I could offer anything solid, no, beyond the general view that the litigious folks generally don't approach a platform before it's significantly large. (Most piracy on smaller mediums goes unharassed, for example, while The Pirate Bay and YouTube gets most of the attention.)

matt4077 9y ago

That seems like a problem such a startup would love to have. In any case, one cost-saving advice would be to piggy-back on Google's process: simply check if they delisted the search result and follow. I can't think of a specific law this would actually infringe.

yorwba 9y ago
Does Google have a public API to check for URL delisting, or are you thinking about bending the search API for that?
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  If I were to try to implement this, I'd safely assume any link I'm asked to delist, Google was also asked to delist. Therefore, if I can't find it in Google Search with a query where the page in question should be the top or only result, it means Google delisted it. That being said, I don't feel anyone should assume Google's decisions are inherently right, and do something just because Google did it.
greglindahl 9y ago
Google takes active counter-measures against the sort of automated queries that this would involve. It's also against their TOS, and might be considered criminal in some places.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

I am not sure how much they need to worry. Bear in mind, they only need to act if they get a request. Consider how successful your startup's search engine would have to be before individuals and companies would start submitting RTBF requests to them! People are worried about how they appear on Google because Google is people's default. (In Europe, Google's somewhere in the 90% of search range, I think, you'd know better than I.) People don't want the first impression people get of them in the world's index to be unfair. That's why RTBF doesn't really even bother removing the original content from the web, they just want Google's index cleaned out. I think if the startup you're advising ever has to seriously worry about RTBF, that startup has already succeeded. (And, as an aside, pass on my best wishes to them. We need more choices in the search space!)

greglindahl 9y ago
I'm not so sanguine -- lots of RTBF requests come from aggregators, same as copyright take-down notices. So it's easy to imagine that a startup could start to get a large fraction of the ones sent to google/bing.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Yes, but you have to be on that company's radar, before they add it to the list. (Something unlikely to happen en masse before your startup is large enough to handle it appropriately.) And in the case of copyright takedowns, the extreme volume comes in part from the fact that Google and other companies of that size have even implemented bulk reporting tools explicitly designed to permit requests of that type and volume that the average user, or even corporation, doesn't have access to. I don't know the answers to these, but I'd wonder if RTBF would allow for you to set restrictions on who can submit requests on behalf of who, or the volume permitted by a given reporting entity, or the level of automation permitted in reporting. Presumably the EU would much rather than you make reasoned, well-thought responses to carefully considered and submitted removal requests, over a bulk import/bulk decision process that leads to a lot of incorrect behavior.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Do you have a concrete reason why you think it's unlikely? I have a different opinion about how large a search engine company would have to be before being able to "handle it appropriately", but maybe you have a good argument that trumps my experiences.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I don't think I could offer anything solid, no, beyond the general view that the litigious folks generally don't approach a platform before it's significantly large. (Most piracy on smaller mediums goes unharassed, for example, while The Pirate Bay and YouTube gets most of the attention.)