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Google Relists Operation Clambake
DarkZero writes: "After almost every tech site and individual geek banded together to either carry the story about Google's delisting of Operation Clambake or flat-out protest it, Google has apparently relisted Xenu.net. Searches for 'xenu' and 'scientology' list Operation Clambake as the first and fourth results, respectively. The search for "scientology" also lists a story from C|Net about Google delisting Operation Clambake, as well as a protest ad from a Kuro5hin reader (oc3)." Update: 03/22 12:52 GMT by M : We jumped the gun. Google only relisted Xenu.net's homepage (where the copyright claims by Scientology were clearly bogus), not the rest of the pages listed in Scientology's DMCA complaint. Some Google sysadmin is getting aggravated because every 20 minutes, another memo from management is coming down telling him to alter the live database.
Earth calling moderators. Come in, moderators.
If you don't know the long history of Scientology using technical means (e.g. issuing bogus rmgroups and spamming critical newsgroups) or legal means (e.g. the "Tom Cruise missile" incident,) or bizarre means (trying to frame a journalist as a bomber, maybe killing a judge's dog, the "bladders of blood, I was nearly raped incident," you should sit back, do a Google search, read the pages, and remember that your moderation points last for three days.
In summary, the above post was not a troll, it was, if anything, insightful or funny.
To Google (after I read the /. story):
- 1& oe=ISO-8859-1&q=dmca).
I am highly concerned about the recent slashdot.org story that your company has recently removed scientology information from your index, select pages from xenu.net and operation clambake.org. It shocks me that all it takes is one letter to knock an opposing voice out of the arena. This will seriously ruin your search engines reputation, especially in the 1st ammendment society we live in.
From Google:
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 23:20:31 -0000
From: "The Google Team"
Subject: Re: xenu.net delisting. [#201603]
To: "Electrawn"
Thank you for your note about the Xenu.net website.
Google takes the first amendment very seriously. We are also obligated to
follow the laws of the land. We removed some pages of the Xenu.net
website from our search engine earlier this week in response to a
copyright infringement notification under the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act (DMCA). It is not within our discretion as a company to decide when
to conform to the DMCA and when to ignore it. As the DMCA mandates, Google
also provides webmasters with the ability to have their content reinstated
if they submit a counter notification to Google. Until that action is
taken, we will comply with the DMCA and keep the contested pages out of
our index. If you'd like more information on this topic, you can find it
here:
www.google.com/dmca.html or by searching Google for "DMCA"
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859
We appreciate your interest in this issue and your taking the time to
express your opinion.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
Overall, Google is handled this in a poor, timid manner. First, one of Google's lawyers (seemingly by himself) decided there might be some liability to Google so they should de-list xenu. Only after xenu was de-listed and Rotten (among others) wrote a story about it, did Google reconsider. Google is a relatively small company and not looking to get involved in some ideological dispute over scientology or the DMCA. They are vulnerable to bigger entities in the legal arena. As a result, what they are doing is providing a means to copyright holders to complain about offending material. The means of complaint is basically a legally binding affadavit throwing the liability back at the complainer(?) to provent frivolous complaints.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Well, well, well... upon hearing this news, my first thought was of disgust - disgust that Google would help Scientology censor xenu.net into oblivion. However I couldn't help but wonder... who leaked the news to the media? If it was Google who informed the media about this while complying with the law, then I must admit it's a nice way to stir up the controversy and to inform people who/what Scientologists are really like. So.. who leaked? :)
While lurking around on Xenu.net, I saw that there's a petition to ask the DOJ to investigate the Church[sic] of Scientology. I signed it. How about you?
DOJ Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/cofs1/petition.html
Getting on the soapbox for a second to rant a bit(since everyone else is doing it, why not?)
A comparision was made between Scientology and Al-Quaeda earlier on in this forum. Please! Let's be realistic here... Al-Quaeda isn't that bad! :) At least they're honest when they say "Death to America!" while trying to kill you. With Scientology... well... they infiltrate. They smile and pretend to be your friend while reaching for your wallet. They play with your emotions. If you catch them in the act and try to speak out about it, they try (and usually succeed) to destroy your life. This is even in their DOCTRINE for crying out loud! They're the ultimate mind-fuckers.
From dictionary.com:
terrorism Pronunciation Key (tr-rzm) n.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
So... if Scientology doesn't fall under this definition, just what IS terrorism anyway?
While it appears clear that Google caved in to PR pressure (site author Andreas has stated he didn't counternotify the DMCA notification), the victory seems to only pertain to the home page and not to the dozens of other urls cult lawyer Ava Paquette cited in her original complaint - which of course leaves the material on those pages unsearchable. Google probably made an 'executive decision' to allow the home page, since there isn't a single thing that could deemed a copyright violation on that page.
However, Google is still allowing Paquette to exploit a contradictory flaw in the DMCA by honoring the rest of the complaint. (I tried searching about 15 other links directly on Google, and all came up dead - so I can't say unilaterally that Google is blocking all of the urls, but they're at least blocking all 15 of a random sampling.)
The key contradiction within the Act itself appears to be the vastly different indemnity offered to ISPs versus that provided for search engines, or as the Act refers to them, "information retrieval tools." Under the DMCA, once notified of links to infringing content, a search engine is required to disable access to the material in question pending a counternotification from the accused infringer - which was what was demanded of the xenu.net site author despite the fact that such a counternotification would have required a citizen of Norway to submit to the jurisdiction of a US federal court.
However, in a recent ruling dealing with the liability of AOL, a court found just the opposite: as an ISP, it was protected from liability for providing "transitory digital network connections" to allegedly infringing material, and not obliged to remove such links even if explicitly informed of their existence. Ironically, ISPs, who are arguably more directly in control, as it were, of third party material hosted on their servers, are granted more protection for "transitory" access to infringing material than search engines, whose very raison d'etre is to provide such links which are inherently ephemeral, and hence transitory, by nature, as they are the result of specific queries, and do not exist on a permanenty accessible single page.
This basic contradiction within the DMCA puts the onus on search engines to maintain by hand the results of their automated search process, and respond to any and all DMCA complaints, regardless of the location or even continued existence of the page to which the link directs the user.
It's clear that this loophole presents rapacious copyright owners with a new tool with which to combat any and all use of their material, but as seen in the case of xenu.net, it can also be used as an alternative to launching a suit by copyright owners whose goal is not the protection of their property, but the silencing of critics.
Google's DMCA disclaimer page says " Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights." Is Google prepared to sue the Church of Scientology? After all, misrepresention is most certainly what has occured, and only after Google suffered a major league PR asswhomping did they, upon further reflection, decide that the home page was not a copyright violation.
So while Scientology lost the major battle (their intention was and has been for some time the removal of all critical content from Google, and especially xenu.net from the top ten), they still managed to win lots of minor skirmishes - forcing the xenu.net site author to respond to dozens of specific complaints, nearly all of them barratrous (which I believe I can opine, being familar with the specific content on those pages, each of which adheres to the bounds of fair use). And because Scientology's newfound weapon found limited success, we can be sure we're going to see it again and again. This is far fom over and unless Google takes a stand, they will be abused badly.
This report is false. Google is still censoring Operation Clambake, they have just relisted the root URL.
The ad was bought by Kuro5hin user oc3. Apparently his actions were quite popular.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I went to the local Church of Scientology in Vancouver once. We had to do a research report on religion. Ironically, I chose Scientology (which isn't even a religion, although it worked for the purposes of this paper). I was actually inside the "church". I said I wanted to learn about it, and they took to the back into a little room. Quite scarry actually, they said they were going to show me a video. The lights went off, so it was completely dark. Then the movie came on in front of me on a gigantic projection screen. It all started off with spinning stars like you're spinning and travelling through space...weird stuff. Then there was some narration (I think it was supposed to be Ron L. Hubbard, or an imitation of him). Then later on, John Travolta said a few words. What a wacko he his. The whole thing was a gigantic brain-wash. After the 30 minute video I felt like I was really struggling to believe that it was all a joke. I knew it was, the video just really does a good job at brain-washing you though. But after I got home, and had time to think about it, I knew it was all a scam. So I'm glad that clambake is back up, to help expose the scam that scientology is. And even if you are curious, do not walk into a Church of Scientology! The people there are very convincing! Not just the video, but the people are very persuasive and they try not to be too pushy at the same time. They just give you a few tame brochures to read, and tell you to come on by if you have any questions. If you're not as strong as I was, you might get dragged in. Don't take the chance...
And anybody dumb enough to write these guys a letter or an email can look forward to being hassled for the rest of their lives by scientology mail, phone calls and personal visits, thats assuming they dont just sue them for their trouble.
/. users who see them selves as white knights and crusaders. Unless you are prepared to be attacked, lose your ISP, maybe your job and carerr DO NOT mess with these people lightly.
These guys play for keeps - read the xenu.net site, you dont provoke them for fun as they WILL destroy your reputation and your life, they think nothing of spreading false stories about people being criminals and or even child molesters.
They are a dangerous group of people and you should carefully investigate them before taking them on this is not an example of MS suing someone or a hacker being charged - this is a group who broke into the IRS and copied files, who have been accused of murder, false imprisonment and brainwashing, have been banned as illegal in a number of countries.
SO- a warning to the
They have some very educated and technically skilled people so be carefull and make sure ANYTHING you do or say against them is done anonymously.
And i can speak from experience,i lost an ISP account for posting certain comments to newsgroups about them and a really nice cease and desist letter. I have moved 5 times and i still get mail from them, i dont know how they do it but they have to have sources inside australia post to get it (im an aussie) and that means they can track you - im sure they do in the US.
I dont recommend the experience and everything i do know is thru anonymous sources.
You have been warned -dont mess with them.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....