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Pollen tried to remove my article and Google is assisting with it
- A_D_E_P_T 4mo agoJust as there are SEO firms that help companies ascend the rankings, there are "reputation management" firms that erase bad news by publishing new articles & by pushing takedown requests on articles they don't like. As with SEO, Google appears to tacitly encourage this. It seems obvious that there should be a review process for takedown requests, with penalties for frivolous requests. (Up to and perhaps including lawsuits to cover costs and for the sake of deterrence.) But it's not at all obvious to Google.
- RobotToaster 4mo agoDMCA notices are supposed to be filed under penalty of perjury, but I'm not aware of anyone ever being prosecuted for that.
- alexashka 4mo agoYour post seems to assume anyone in power is acting in good faith and wants a fair system.
- gorgmah 4mo agoAlready 12 points after just 34 minutes. As noted at the end of the article, streisand effect is alive and well and this article is on its way to the front page.
- pancho111203 4mo agoHow easy is it to challenge these claims?
- PunchyHamster 4mo agoYou pay lawyer, they back off, you're now in the red for lawyer fees. I guess you could sue for damages but good fucking luck
- eamag 4mo ago1) Do you have to pay for the lawyer? Can't you object yourself? 2) Shouldn't offending side reimburse the expenses?
- masfuerte 4mo ago> Shouldn't offending side reimburse the expenses? In an ideal world. They might even be legally liable in this one. But you still have to sue them to get the money, which is an expensive gamble for a very small pay off.
- bombcar 4mo agoThe biggest issue is that to challenge them, you have to dox yourself, even if the DMCA claim is completely bogus and itself is contains bullshit information about nobody who actually exists (e.g, in a doxing war, the party that fires a bullshit DMCA claim first has a huge advantage).
- samat 4mo agoI would have never heard about Negus-Fancey and Wright, but now I have! Streisand at its finest.
- bflesch 4mo ago[flagged]
- IAmBroom 4mo ago"Wright" is a very common last name. You really are grasping at straws.
- bflesch 4mo ago[flagged]
- jen20 4mo agoIn the UK, “Wright” is the 14th most common surname. It appears in Chaucer, and appears to cover approximately 900,000 people globally. “Negus” is indeed less common - most prevalent in Ethiopia (where it means “king”) - seems to be 6-7000 people globally currently. However, that _isn’t actually the name_ of the CEO in this case, which is “Negus-Fancey” - an English double-barreled name with different etymology: akin to the relationship between Java and JavaScript. I understand the desire to make someone who has allegedly done something bad look worse by ties to other people in the service of conspiracy theory. I can’t tell if your surname is “Flesch” or not (it seems no less reasonable than your own assumptions about names) - but if it is, other bearers of that name have committed _far_ worse crimes than financial fraud.
- bflesch 4mo ago[flagged]
- CamperBob2 4mo agoI heard he invented Bitcoin
- PunchyHamster 4mo ago> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty? Because there is no law that requires a penalty. It's very common on YT, if you are big enough of a company you can file them willy nilly and never get any consequence
- IAmBroom 4mo agoThere is a law; it's perjury. But it isn't enforced, so ... it might as well not exist.
- darthwalsh 4mo ago[dead]
- nubinetwork 4mo agoI'm curious how Google notifies people about things like this... do they pull an email out of whois, or your DNS SOA? If there's nothing linking your website to a Google account, it seems like they could just make your website disappear.
- LoganDark 4mo agoDo they even?
- progbits 4mo ago> So imagine my surprise when I was notified that Google removed the article from its search results You know you can just read the linked articles, right? Edit: parent has edited their post, it used to say something like "google has never notified anyone about such things".
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- donohoe 4mo agoI have received notifications for stories published by the org I work at when they were delisted for certain terms. Like here, it’s people who got caught doing disreputable things and trying to cleanup their online presence.
- donohoe 4mo agoMany sites have setup Google Search Console and so you can be notified through that.
- nubinetwork 4mo agoThat was what I was referring to... if you never set it up, I guess you'll never know then?
- sourcecodeplz 4mo agoif this makes you angry, it should! but there is nothing "one" can do. it is just how the system is set up.
- znpy 4mo ago> It seems that anyone can file a bogus copyright claim to get an article they don't like removed from Google's search index This has been known for years. Copyright has been abused for many many years in this sense. And Google is very well known for their completely absent human-in-the-loop support, so that doesn’t help either.
- mDyJzDPmBdG 4mo agoWhile that is true, and Google deserves are shaming they get for their terrible handling of DMCA, lets try to be real. Autoaccepting all DMCA takedown requests with zero verification is simplest and cheapest approach to be complaint. Failing to delete a file is tho only way to be on hook for any repercussions.
- znpy 4mo agoin the year of AI google could easily to a first round of review of DMCA complaints and nonetheless, it's still on their side to act properly. it's not like they lack funds to pay people reviewing claims.
- TFNA 4mo ago> Negus-Fancey I have seen that posh double-barreled surname before: Charles and Cathy Negus-Fancey were the managers of the reclusive cult musician Scott Walker and his interface to the world. Any close relation?
- philipwhiuk 4mo agoProbably - he got started in the music business: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/talent-2010-the-entrepreneur-callum-negusfancey-1846289.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/talent-20...
- saaaaaam 4mo agoCharles Negus-Fancey is Callum Negus-Fancey’s father. Charles Negus-Fancey’s father was Edwin Fancey, a British film producer and distributor.
- bflesch 4mo ago[flagged]
- pibaker 4mo agoAh, yes, you know someone's desperate when you see a bogus DMCA claim like this. Not the first time this happened and definitely won't be the last. This also demonstrates why it is bad for a law to mandate private entities to do moderation, in this case taking down copyright infringement materials when reported. Google, like basically all big platforms, doesn't care if a claim is fraudulent because the parties impacted cannot hold it accountable — google will just tell you they are themselves victims of the fraudulent claim. And to be fair, they are. But it has to enforce the claims or else lose its safe harbor exemption. This practically allows bad actors to use platforms as their shields, and in the end no one but the victim suffers any consequences for their abuse of the copyright laws. I think a more sane approach would to require every copyright takedown to require a court order. Granted, the legal system is not perfect, but judges are not incentivized to always side with the supposed copyright holder like online platforms do. They will not be letting someone claiming to be living on a deserted island to file a claim and even when fraud does occur, they will at least know where the claim is actually coming from and be able to punish the fraudster accordingly.
- abirch 4mo ago1)The legal system is not fast. 2) which jurisdiction should have the right to ask the judge to take down the material?
- b112 4mo agoThis could be like warrants and judicial overview. Warrants are not slow. This is only a gatekeep on "does this make any sense". And of course, the cost of the court system/overview/etc could be born by judgments against those found actually guilty.
- lambdaone 4mo agoDMCA notices are meant to be submitted "under penalty of perjury", and false notices could in theory result in civil action being taken against those who send them. In practice, neither of these occur even if the sender is a real person, like a record company lawyer lending their name to complaint that are entirely computer generated, or, in this as in so many cases, a completely fabricated identity. Requiring verification through government ID for takedown notices should be a minimum requirement.
- dueyfinster 4mo agoI'd be curious if any prosecutions are a real deterrent - it seems not. YouTube has to follow the DMCA but also enforces its stricter content ID, with popular creators getting hit (and being vocal) and YouTube seeming to "fix" the issues (until next time). Ultimately the whole system needs reform now where it's easier than ever via LLMs to send off these notices.
- TeMPOraL 4mo agoAFAIU, the whole deal is that the bogus claims never actually reach the DMCA stage - big platforms implement their moderation policies and copyright claim handling specifically to avoid involving the legal system. It's that intermediate layer that incentivizes automated, bogus claims, as there's effectively zero consequences to them.
- ikeboy 4mo agoWe got told by the 9th circuit that false claims submitted under penalty of perjury are actually just "opinions" not capable of being proven true or false. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/22-56176/22-56176-2024-03-28.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/22...
- lokar 4mo agoBut does that apply to a lie about your identity?
- 4mo ago
- altmanaltman 4mo ago> The fake DMCA is made by a fake profile from a country with zero inhabitants. The removal requests by this "Ellie Piee" are made from the country called Bouvet Island, an uninhabited Norwegian dependent territory in the South Atlantic/Southern Ocean near Antarctica. It has zero inhabitants, and is referred to as the "world's most remote island." this is the most infuriating part, you don't even have to be a person to do this?
- orliesaurus 4mo agoDoes Google use GEMINI to handle these? The thing that stands out to me isn't even the fake identity or the fake country. It's that the incentives are completely backwards. Submitting a bogus DMCA is basically free. Google's cheapest option is to comply first and sort it out later. Meanwhile the person who did nothing wrong has to spend hours (or money) fixing it. That's a system where every incentive points toward abuse...without knowing what and how this system works behind the scenes, makes me wonder...if it's one of those "delegated to Accenture" processes; like the Google Drive file moderation...
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- nraynaud 4mo agoFunny, is recently searched “match plate in French“ the LLM went straight to match sticks and dinner plates, and the dummizer in search fixed “plate“ to “play“ and went into soccer territory. I still have no clue how the foundry pattern is called in my native language.
- Terr_ 4mo ago> fixed “plate“ to “play“ and went into soccer territory. Well, a soccer search lets Google make more money by showing you more-profitable ads. /only-partial-sarcasm
- nneonneo 4mo agoI’m guessing the obvious fakeness of the request is part of it: they’re testing to see if anyone is paying attention. Maybe the author doesn’t care if it gets taken down after four years; maybe they see a super fake request and assume it won’t succeed (or read it as spam). It also costs them nothing and has zero legal liability because there’s nobody to prosecute for such a fake request.
- sajithdilshan 4mo agoThe irony is that now this article and the hackers news post are the top google search results for Negus Fancey
- tanseydavid 4mo agoThat's beautiful irony.
- mekoka 4mo agoI expect the documentary to get an uptick in downloads as well.
- Cider9986 4mo agoAlso top for "pollen company"
- throwccp 4mo ago[dead]
- smashini 4mo agoForbes 30 under 30...
- Terr_ 4mo agoIn particular, filed under 2019, Europe, Entertainment. https://www.forbes.com/under30/list/2019/europe/entertainment/#af63e571062e https://www.forbes.com/under30/list/2019/europe/entertainmen...
- kraag22 4mo agoIt’s great when someone has such a large online presence that, if they have a problem with a huge company like Google, the company ends up fixing it just for the PR. I doubt they’d respond the same way to an average person.
- ohashi 4mo agoI help run a domain legal case search engine (UDRP.tools) and we run into this type of stuff too. Notices that results are being purged. It's bullshit. We aggregate legal case data and provide analytics about UDRP cases. These aren't private and it's not personal information. It's all coming from publicly documented arbitration decisions. Trying to hide/erase your history in (domain) court on google claiming copyright is a lie. eg. https://lumendatabase.org/notices/27934920 https://lumendatabase.org/notices/27934920
- senadir 4mo agoIt seems the BBC documentary link also returns a 404. https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-festival-fail https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-f...
- davidgl 4mo agoIt's on BBC iPlayer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001n327/crashed-800m-festival-fail https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001n327/crashed-800m-...
- pseudolus 4mo agoUnfortunately BBC iPlayer is blocked in a number of regions. However, the doc appears to be available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXJmD2XIZfQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXJmD2XIZfQ .
- froh 4mo ago"the uploader has not made this video available in your country" (socerlist republic of Germany und commernest Europe?)
- JdeBP 4mo agoThat's a television guide for what's currently being broadcast, published by the Daily Mail, not the actual documentary from 2023.
- flipbrad 4mo agoShould have used a GDPR takedown instead of copyright: in the EU, Google doesn't tell you the identity of the requester, what qas allegedly infringing, or even the affected URl, and there's no ability to challenge. Great stuff. (/s)
- hootz 4mo agoAh, the wonders of copyright. A weapon disguised as protection. Like with age verification and "think of the children", copyright claims have "think of the small artists".
- nkmnz 4mo agoInterestingly, the fourth highest ranking link on google for the CEOs name links to a 404: https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-festival-fail https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-f...
- itintheory 4mo agoSomehow not in the wayback machine or archive.ph. Probably just coincidence.
- JdeBP 4mo agoWe probably should not read too much into the fact that the Daily Mail's guide to what's currently on television no longer lists a documentary from 2023. Except, perhaps, that the Daily Mail's search engine gaming is clearly quite effective.
- santiagobasulto 4mo agoThis is all super interesting, but I can't decide what's the MOST interesting thing: 1. The whole Pollen case (I didn't know about) 2. That Google can be tricked so easily? 3. The whole "industry" that seems to be in place to clean the image of some scumbags in the internet (this whole Ellie Piee from Bouvet Island) I think the most worrying part is Google's fragility to hurt itself.
- johnathan101 4mo ago[flagged]
- hmokiguess 4mo agoI love a good Barba Streisand effect, hope this becomes one!
- saaaaaam 4mo agoThe article in question is now the second result I see in Google in a private browser when I search for "Callum Negus-Fancey"
- second-chip 4mo agoStreisand effect is in effect! Nicely done Google and whoever you are Pollen.
- nativeit 4mo ago> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty? Because Google started the process of removing humans from every loop possible years ago, and these sorts of things are the results of those sorts of things.
- plagiarist 4mo agoSteal $20 from a gas station and it is jail time. Instead, steal wages from employees and double-charge customers to make it a civil case.
- triceratops 4mo agoPretty much this. Cashier takes $20 out of the register at a gas station and it goes on their criminal record. Gas station owner shorts the cashier $20 on their pay and there's basically no recourse.
- amarcheschi 4mo agoA few months ago I got in touch with Google legal team to remove an ad that wasn't legal. They said that they don't moderate third party content. (???? Bro what?). Except for this bogus excuse, the ad was paid for by a foreign state trying to influence my country's opinion on some non profit organizations. The ad wasn't compliant with the European regulation on political ads (in my opinion). I thought of getting in touch with my communication authority but it's something that went on for days with Google and eventually you're left with no willpower left. Mind you I referenced the points of the law I thought they were breaching (well not just me, this thing went on an italian newspaper before I asked for removal), which is not the most interesting way to spend time
- democracy 4mo agoDid you try to negatively impact their profit? And you expected them to act on it? Are you crazy? /s
- bogometer 4mo agoGoogle require ID verification for DMCA requests. That would put an end to most of the abuse.
- janpeuker 4mo agoThis is an extremely common technique against investigative reporting, in particular because certain social media / blogging platforms allow backdating posts [1]. So people just copy your post, claim DMCA, and then take it down quickly after. 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39355869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39355869
- bradley13 4mo agoDMCA takedowns should not exist. If it's important, get a court judgement, where the opposing party can present a defense. If it's not worth a court case, then it must not be very important. Or maybe they have no case.
- OkayPhysicist 4mo agoDMCA takedowns, if they were actually followed to the letter of the law, would be much better than the current system. What's supposed to happen is Party A posts a video that Party B thinks infringes on their copyright on Platform C. B sends a DMCA claim to C. C takes down the content, and sends A a copy of the claim. A decides to fight the takedown, sends a counter claim to C. C reinstates the content, and sends the counterclaim to B. A and B now have each other's information, and are free to sue each other. The problem with the status quo is that the platforms are taking full advantage of the slack given between receiving notice and taking action for counterclaims, but acting immediately on claims.
- franciscator 4mo agoInternet Crime Syndicate(s)
- franciscator 4mo agoLooks like movement of some internet crime syndicate(s) ...
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]