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Court May Order Google to Censor ‘Torrent,’ ‘RapidShare’ and ‘Megaupload’

10 points by lightspot 14y ago

naner 14y ago
...from its Instant and Autocomplete services. Still bad but not quite so bad. Actually, I'm a little worried about filtering Instant since that's effectively filtering all of search for many people. And why bother with filtering Megaupload? It is dead.
- stordoff 14y ago
  > And why bother with filtering Megaupload? It is dead. The case has been argued in the lower courts, so it was probably included then as it was before the Megaupload takedown.
- tomku 14y ago
  When something is "censored" from Instant, it just says "Press enter to search" rather than loading it automatically. Nobody who bothered to put "torrent" in the search box is going to be dissuaded by having to press one extra key to see the results.
  - naner 14y ago
    Thank you for clarifying, I just assumed search results would be missing. Which now that I think about it doesn't make much sense.
cageface 14y ago
And people just change the names and the whole circus starts all over again. I'm 100% against copyright infringement but this is energy in the wrong direction.
wmf 14y ago
...in France.
grecy 14y ago
I wonder if I had a business that sold legal torrents, would I be able to sue because they are being anti-competitive towards my business?
- tomku 14y ago
  No, Google is under no legal obligation whatsoever to link to your site, let alone promote your site/topic using keyword autocompletion or instant searches. There's more to the legal definition of "anti-competitive behavior" than "anything that hurts someone else's business", although it's vague enough that I can understand the confusion.
  - grecy 14y ago
    I was actually suggesting suing the government for forcing Google to remove my legal business from the index.
    - tomku 14y ago
      Did you read the article? This is about autocompletion and automatic Google Instant searches, not removing anyone from the index. As with the huge list of terms that are currently "censored" (including every adult-oriented term they could think of), you just have to type the word without autocomplete and press enter to see the results. In any case, suing the government for anti-competitive behavior doesn't really make any sense. Governments have much wider powers of regulation than businesses do, and for good reason. You could try a free speech lawsuit, but it'd depend on your country's free speech laws. One potential snag is that in the scenario you described, it's not really YOUR speech that's being restrained, but Google's.
Zenst 14y ago
Interesting, so since the FBI seized the megaupload domain at the start of the year. Now apparently it is to be blocked by google thru a court order. Can the FBI be trusted to look after your domain you do have to wonder. Will make for some interesting stories and legal angles down the line.
malandrew 14y ago
What about legitimate uses like "ubuntu torrent" or "centos torrent"?

10 points by lightspot 14y ago

naner 14y ago

...from its Instant and Autocomplete services. Still bad but not quite so bad. Actually, I'm a little worried about filtering Instant since that's effectively filtering all of search for many people. And why bother with filtering Megaupload? It is dead.

stordoff 14y ago
> And why bother with filtering Megaupload? It is dead. The case has been argued in the lower courts, so it was probably included then as it was before the Megaupload takedown.
tomku 14y ago
When something is "censored" from Instant, it just says "Press enter to search" rather than loading it automatically. Nobody who bothered to put "torrent" in the search box is going to be dissuaded by having to press one extra key to see the results.
- naner 14y ago
  Thank you for clarifying, I just assumed search results would be missing. Which now that I think about it doesn't make much sense.

cageface 14y ago

And people just change the names and the whole circus starts all over again. I'm 100% against copyright infringement but this is energy in the wrong direction.

wmf 14y ago

...in France.

grecy 14y ago

I wonder if I had a business that sold legal torrents, would I be able to sue because they are being anti-competitive towards my business?

tomku 14y ago
No, Google is under no legal obligation whatsoever to link to your site, let alone promote your site/topic using keyword autocompletion or instant searches. There's more to the legal definition of "anti-competitive behavior" than "anything that hurts someone else's business", although it's vague enough that I can understand the confusion.
- grecy 14y ago
  I was actually suggesting suing the government for forcing Google to remove my legal business from the index.
  - tomku 14y ago
    Did you read the article? This is about autocompletion and automatic Google Instant searches, not removing anyone from the index. As with the huge list of terms that are currently "censored" (including every adult-oriented term they could think of), you just have to type the word without autocomplete and press enter to see the results. In any case, suing the government for anti-competitive behavior doesn't really make any sense. Governments have much wider powers of regulation than businesses do, and for good reason. You could try a free speech lawsuit, but it'd depend on your country's free speech laws. One potential snag is that in the scenario you described, it's not really YOUR speech that's being restrained, but Google's.

Zenst 14y ago

Interesting, so since the FBI seized the megaupload domain at the start of the year. Now apparently it is to be blocked by google thru a court order. Can the FBI be trusted to look after your domain you do have to wonder. Will make for some interesting stories and legal angles down the line.

malandrew 14y ago

What about legitimate uses like "ubuntu torrent" or "centos torrent"?