[wordup] Google does the right thing ...

[Adam Shand]

Check the Info Anarchy site for lots of links and some comments on the
story.

Adam.

Via: http://potlatch.net/MoinMoin/moin.cgi/LoveBlog
From: http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2002/4/13/1258/31858

Google Does the Right Thing (Finally) By erik, Section Articles
Posted on Sat Apr 13th, 2002 at 05:39:24 PM GMT Copyright Google, as we
previously reported, recently gave in to a Scientology DMCA takedown
notification and removed several files on the xenu.net server and its
mirrors from its index. After a wave of protests, they unblocked the
http://www.xenu.net/ front page, but none of the requested subpages,
like the Xenu Leaflet, which summarizes Scientology's bizarre beliefs
concisely. That's because Google realized that Scientology did not have
a legitimate case against the front page, but could not decide whether
this was also true for the subpages.

Most Net media did not report this crucial detail accurately, so it was
generally believed that Google had fixed the problem. In spite of no
further media pressure, Google has now decided to publish the DMCA
"notice and takedown" letters and list them whenever someone searches
for files that have been removed from the index. So when you search for
"site:xenu.net leaflet" now, you get the censored list of hits and a
note at the bottom:

In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, we have removed 9 result(s) from this page. If you wish,
you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.

Following the link gives you the Scientology letter, with the list of
censored URLs in it . Now, let's think: What does a search engine do? It
gives us a list of relevant URLs to any given query. With the linked
letters, Scientology has involuntarily increased Google's usefulness for
finding interesting Scientology URLs, because the ones in the letter are
most likely especially interesting. And by acknowledging that the
Xenu.net leaflet violates their copyright, they also implicitly claim
that its content is accurate -- it's copied from them, after all.

A quite smart move on the part of Google that deserves our respect.

The anti-DMCA site chillingeffects.org documents the letters in detail.