20 ms·

Google's link to French privacy fine crashes watchdog's site

62 points by hepha1979 13y ago

moron4hire 13y ago
Headline a week from now: France Fines Google For Malicious DDOS attack on Watchdog Site.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
What's the likely hood someone at Google actually considered this would happen and went ahead with it anyway? (or was the link a mandatory part of the statement they were told to issue?).
- c2prods 13y ago
  The link was mandatory.
  - izzydata 13y ago
    The point he is trying to make that someone at google could have suspected the high traffic and didn't warn them because it isn't their problem.
    - walshemj 13y ago
      And they say that Americans dont get "irony" :-)
- mseebach 13y ago
  First line of fifth paragraph: The CNIL had demanded that the notice stay on the site for two days. Please, at the very least, give the article a cursory skim before knee-jerk commenting.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    The notice had to stay on the site - yes - but I wasn't sure if the link (which was only a small part of the notice) had to be included as part of the notice.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    regardless of the mandatory aspect, the question still hold, did they anticipate the flood
  - maaaats 13y ago
    Please, at the very least, try to understand the comment before knee-jerk commenting.
- leoedin 13y ago
  I'm not sure why you received such a negative comment from mseebach - the first part of your comment is a perfectly valid question that's not addressed in the article. The people at Google must have suspected that it would happen. Whether they specifically pointed out that they were going to send huge amounts of traffic to their site or not would be interesting to know.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    It's probably in part because 'went ahead with it anyway' implies negligence.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      Not negligence. Malice :) I was really just imagining someone at Google realising what was going to happen and being secretly quite happy about it.
- p4bl0 13y ago
  Well, I'm all on the CNIL side, but clearly the people there should have thought of it on their own (and I'm actually surprised they did not), and take appropriate action. For instance serving at least that specific page statically from a server which could endure the two days of Google.fr.
stangeek 13y ago
Errr, the links seems to be working fine?! Usual Guardian French-bashing?
- nmc 13y ago
  Please get your dates right. The outage happened on Friday the 7th of February, and only lasted until Saturday afternoon. Of course, the link is now working fine again.
  - jpadkins 13y ago
    The link was on google's homepage from Friday to Saturday.
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martin-adams 13y ago
I wonder if the Google cache had a copy.
myrandomcomment 13y ago
While I do not always hold Google (et. al.) blameless, sometimes I wonder why companies keep doing business in France given their bureaucracy and knee jerk policies designed to make everything "French" even when it does not make sense. http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/learn-some-french-computer-terms http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/learn-some-french-computer-t...
- GuiA 13y ago
  That article you posted is silly. Regarding the first paragraph: well of course these are going to be literally translated; why would you not translate words like "search engine" or "browser"? Do you want the French to use the actual words "search engine"? Regarding the second paragraph: actually, most of the words one would put in that category have translations: web (toile), driver (pilote). "wifi" makes sense as it is (as it was coined by an international alliance); "modem" still makes sense in French (modulateur-démodulateur). Regarding the last paragraph, again, most of these make sense. "Fonts" existed way before computers and thus have a valid French word; "download" was appropriately replaced by "télécharger", from "télé" (distance) and "charger" (load). Again, why would French people use the actual word "download"? The former allows one to guess its meaning even if they have no clue what the concept of downloading is. There are a couple silly things ("courriel" being one of the few valid complaints, and even then the same argument as for "télécharger" still holds), but overall it's really not crazy that a language would translate words so that they make more sense.
  - ars 13y ago
    It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin. I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs?
    - laumars 13y ago
      > It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin. "jargon" just means the words aren't easy for common folk to understand. So the logical conclusion would be that jargon should be translated. Personally I don't see why "search engine" or "browser" is any different to "fire engine" or "car". They're all just nouns (in fact "fire engine" even varies amongst English speakers as I believe Americans call it "fire truck"). > I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs? That's another language in itself; albeit a computer based one with English-language origins. You don't see people taking about int64 in common conversation any more than you see English people using French nouns to describe English objects.
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62 points by hepha1979 13y ago

Headline a week from now: France Fines Google For Malicious DDOS attack on Watchdog Site.

What's the likely hood someone at Google actually considered this would happen and went ahead with it anyway? (or was the link a mandatory part of the statement they were told to issue?).

c2prods 13y ago
The link was mandatory.
- izzydata 13y ago
  The point he is trying to make that someone at google could have suspected the high traffic and didn't warn them because it isn't their problem.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    And they say that Americans dont get "irony" :-)
mseebach 13y ago
First line of fifth paragraph: The CNIL had demanded that the notice stay on the site for two days. Please, at the very least, give the article a cursory skim before knee-jerk commenting.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  The notice had to stay on the site - yes - but I wasn't sure if the link (which was only a small part of the notice) had to be included as part of the notice.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  regardless of the mandatory aspect, the question still hold, did they anticipate the flood
- maaaats 13y ago
  Please, at the very least, try to understand the comment before knee-jerk commenting.
leoedin 13y ago
I'm not sure why you received such a negative comment from mseebach - the first part of your comment is a perfectly valid question that's not addressed in the article. The people at Google must have suspected that it would happen. Whether they specifically pointed out that they were going to send huge amounts of traffic to their site or not would be interesting to know.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  It's probably in part because 'went ahead with it anyway' implies negligence.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Not negligence. Malice :) I was really just imagining someone at Google realising what was going to happen and being secretly quite happy about it.
p4bl0 13y ago
Well, I'm all on the CNIL side, but clearly the people there should have thought of it on their own (and I'm actually surprised they did not), and take appropriate action. For instance serving at least that specific page statically from a server which could endure the two days of Google.fr.

stangeek 13y ago

Errr, the links seems to be working fine?! Usual Guardian French-bashing?

nmc 13y ago
Please get your dates right. The outage happened on Friday the 7th of February, and only lasted until Saturday afternoon. Of course, the link is now working fine again.
- jpadkins 13y ago
  The link was on google's homepage from Friday to Saturday.

deleted 13y ago

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deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

martin-adams 13y ago

I wonder if the Google cache had a copy.

myrandomcomment 13y ago

While I do not always hold Google (et. al.) blameless, sometimes I wonder why companies keep doing business in France given their bureaucracy and knee jerk policies designed to make everything "French" even when it does not make sense. http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/learn-some-french-computer-terms http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/learn-some-french-computer-t...

GuiA 13y ago
That article you posted is silly. Regarding the first paragraph: well of course these are going to be literally translated; why would you not translate words like "search engine" or "browser"? Do you want the French to use the actual words "search engine"? Regarding the second paragraph: actually, most of the words one would put in that category have translations: web (toile), driver (pilote). "wifi" makes sense as it is (as it was coined by an international alliance); "modem" still makes sense in French (modulateur-démodulateur). Regarding the last paragraph, again, most of these make sense. "Fonts" existed way before computers and thus have a valid French word; "download" was appropriately replaced by "télécharger", from "télé" (distance) and "charger" (load). Again, why would French people use the actual word "download"? The former allows one to guess its meaning even if they have no clue what the concept of downloading is. There are a couple silly things ("courriel" being one of the few valid complaints, and even then the same argument as for "télécharger" still holds), but overall it's really not crazy that a language would translate words so that they make more sense.
- ars 13y ago
  It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin. I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs?
  - laumars 13y ago
    > It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin. "jargon" just means the words aren't easy for common folk to understand. So the logical conclusion would be that jargon should be translated. Personally I don't see why "search engine" or "browser" is any different to "fire engine" or "car". They're all just nouns (in fact "fire engine" even varies amongst English speakers as I believe Americans call it "fire truck"). > I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs? That's another language in itself; albeit a computer based one with English-language origins. You don't see people taking about int64 in common conversation any more than you see English people using French nouns to describe English objects.

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