Slashdot Mirror
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.
Now I hope everyone who made such a fuss here (and elsewhere) will be willing to help in whatever way they can if the Scientologists decide to go after Google with their lawyers and drag them to court. I would like Google to continue to be around for a long time, and not go bankrupt fighting these crazies.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
That a marginal religion such as Scientology could wield such massive power is truly a frightening concept.
This without having any serious followers in governmental leadership positions.
Clever. Excellent way for Google to demonstrate a point about the DMCA without in the end actually delisting the site. Kudos to them.
slashdot!=valid HTML
There's also following "sponsored link" appearing highlighted in nice green, when looking for the word "scientology": "Scientologist are Evil? Why is Google censoring this site? What are the Scientologist hiding? www.xenu.net:" Comes up only on some of the searches, though - so you need to click few times to get it. So, Xenu.net gets even better covarage then before Scientology started to fight it. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot .. :-)
The only thing I'm waiting now for - an official statement and explanation from Google on today's turbulent events.
Scientology is a complete fraud, but an interesting fraud. I would encourage anyone even marginally curious to take a look at the explanation of the cult on xenu.net. The Scientologists had an interesting conflict with the creators of Southpark. In a skit for the MTV Music Awards show, the South Park creators lambast Scientology and were threatened with lawsuits - yet they didn't back down. Here is the link to a description of the skit. Here. Southpark also tore into scientology in a spoof on them and street magician David Blaine. HOWEVER - note that the fellow who plays Chef does not appear in this episode - for he, Isaac Hayes, is a scientologist. Watch the episode here.
Perhaps a search on "scientology" should return a message like: Due to threatened lawsuits via the DMCA and to deal with all parties in an even-handed manner Google has removed all searches with the keyword "scientology".
So, Slashdot is making money now right? So repost the comments you were forced to remove. Let them litigate on two fronts.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I saw the Xenu ad when I was reading the previous story and I thought "wow, that's really clever!"...here's why:
Separation of editors and advertisers. Sometimes it's almost as strong as separation of church and state (although like church/state it's not absolute). In fact, a lot of sites pride themselves on the fact that editors can air stories even if it pisses off advertisers.
Well why the hell not have it work in the other direction? Why not use advertising to bypass editorial waffling or censorship?
Look at it this way. Let's say we all chipped in $5 each to create a fund to ensure that Xenu.Net showed up for every even-remotely related Scientology link (ie, Scientology, Travola, Dianetics, Bukkake, etc). Now, does Scientology have the legal right to tell Google they can't run those ads (thus depriving Google of its income). Couldn't Google argue that pulling ads that have been paid for would damage its business?
What about extending the principle to other sites like Yahoo, or heck the NY Times. The way I see it, all Scientology could do is threaten to boycott Google/Yahoo/NY Times...they routinely ignore boycotts from groups all the time. Or they could pay to run ads countering the Xenu ads.
Well of course I don't know for sure if things would be this simple but...you know, why can't we geeks take a page from the Corporate Dirty Playbook...fight with advertising.
I'm all for giving money to the EFF but I think I would almost rather spend my money creating an ad campaign...along the lines of TheTruth ads you see against the tobacco industry. I mean, even smokers curse Big Tobacco out the side of their mouth as they buy another pack. The Tobacco Industry has a PR nightmare...so why can't Disney or Scientology or the MPAA or RIAA?
I've got $20 right here I'll pitch in.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
is it possible?
....
If everyone who has a webpage creates a link to xenu.net then won't that boost Xenu.com's ranking on Google? Then if someone searches for Scientology Xenu would appear first
Somone wrote in earlier comment : "After almost every tech site and individual geek banded together to...". Well, exactly. The possible implications of world's most popular search engine taking responsibility for the contest of the sites it link to, cannot be underestimated. It well may be an IT story of the year so far. Yet, of all tech sites, TheRegister.co.uk , always happy to stir up trouble in much less important cases - is completly quiet. Not even the smallest mention of today's events. It baffles me why.
After hearing about all the DMCA says about this kind of think, and being against scientology since I first heard about it I think it's good that they did remove it. But then again people are screaming "first amendment, free speech". And of course the conspirity theorists who say "why should search engines stop there, why not take down everything?"
And we all know what the next step is, the lawyers step in toss around the first amendment like a worn out vollyball.
Let's see if Slashdot believes in 'freedom to link' :)
:) (even if it *isn't* html)
Here is an image that is absolutely irreplaceable in criticizing 'Scientology' and I'll include the commentary here...
David Miscavige - otherwise available in his guise as a poodle at http://laugh.at/scientology - leading his acolytes up the 'Escalator to Total Freedom'.
http://members.tripod.com/zinjifar0/esc01.jpg
Somehow, I suspect Slashdot will hear about this link
Zinj
you're assuming the moderators are't scientologist.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The fact is that google are one of the few if only companies willing to stand up to the COS, they have deep pockets and lots of lawyers and they throw lawsuits around like confetti.
I encourage everyone to read the Clambake Site and the linked documents, and i would reccomend the books linked from it - Particularly the following
A piece of blus sky - subject of a massive lawsuit - the inside story of the church written by a former scienologist himself.
L Ron Hubbard - Messiah or madman - learn the truth about the nutcase named ron
Theres many more and i encourage you to read them.
This is a church that robs its clients, asttempted to take over the british mental health system, pretty much took over the town of Clearwater, performs feudal punishments for transgressions,may have been involved in a number of murders, were caught systematically spying on the US govt including breaking into the IRS and copying court documents and much more. (read about the Sea Org, their very own navy)
they dont play games and they harrass people who go against them in ways you cannot even imagine and they have billions of dollars in money and assetts.
Read about them and learn the truth but be very carefull, these guys are very serious customers.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
The Scientology cult has made systematic attempts at removing any links to negative websites -- both by creating a large collection of interlinked websites of their own (thereby raising their own propaganda sites in the rankings), and when that wasn't sufficient -- legal threats.
Slashdot participants are in a unique position here to turn the tables on the cult by adding a link to http://www.xenu.net to all the websites we run. If enough of us link to www.xenu.net, we can make it the #1 resource for information about Scientology! (remember that Google's cache uses the number of referring websites to determine the ranking of listings in search results).
Alex Berkman
They're brave enough to mock anyone in power and put total strangers on the spot, but the CoS is just too risky.
Don't forget.. Scientiology fought against the IRS in teh 80's... AND WON!
Anyone who can fight against the IRS and win is something that *only* a large gov't wants to tackle with.
I went to the Sci site and took their personality test, or whatever they called it. Out of 9 categories I had one that was below the "under perfect conditions" line; the rest were much above that line. I am far from a perfect person, I have many flaws, and I answered as honestly as I could (some of their questions were sorta ambiguous, so I did the best I could), but if I got that high a score then I shudder to think whom they actually get in their doors and end up giving mucho money. Sad cases those gents/girls must be, and with their techniques I would be hard pressed to say it is anything less than a big mind rape. Christ, just the stuff they pulled after 9/11 should get them all thrown in jail!
The gov and the IRS need to grow some balls and just rip the shit out of these assholes. Their shit is already legendary
BTW, CoS, come get me and my mere pittance of equity, I'll be bankrupt by the time you file your first brief. What a bunch of psychopathic fucktards with a massive inferiority complex! Makes me wonder if they have to eat their own genitalia in some kinda initiation rite.
Just die! (Yeah, I'm pretty pissed off right now.)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Actually they eventually lost and had many of their senior members including hubbards wife sent to jail, you see the way they were winning was using spies to break into and copy the IRS's documents and give them to them, they also did the same thing against the justice department and other departments.
Some religion hey?
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
...I think Google should counter-file. This would be in their best interest: They really should be considered a library, or a common carrier. Otherwise, Google just admit that they are responsible for any site they index and cache. And this is probably not what they want. IANAL of course.
http://www.operatingthetan.com/google/
From what it says, the Pro-Scientology section of DMOZ has a Scientologist for an editor while they refuse to name an editor for the section related to Scientology opponents.
The effect of this, according to the link above, means that Pro-Scientology sites get added quickly and Con-Scientology sites don't, or not at all.
I am very disappointed.
As someone much wiser than I once said:
About 100 years. They all start out as cults.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
There is one thing that's scarier than Google's willingness to compromise the PageRank system at the first hint of a perceived inconvenience. That's their completely inadequate privacy policy.
It's boiler-plate: they say they'll change it whenever they like, but there's no mention of whether the previous data they've collected would fall under the old or new policy. Add to this the fact that the ownership and control of Google will most likely be shifting over the next few years, if Google goes public. Bill Gates could buy the whole thing with the loose change he carries in his pocket.
Google apparently has no interest in destroying old data, and intends to keep it all as long as possible. It's a potential gold mine as a corporate asset, and a potential disaster in terms of civil liberties and privacy.
Google has no good reason for collecting any of the data they collect; they just do it.
They claim that none of it is "personally identifiable," without mentioning the fact that many IP numbers are static, and even if they aren't, new laws give the feds the power to make it "personally identifiable" without probable cause.
Google's outrageous cookie policy just makes it that much easier to tie it all together, for those who don't erase cookies frequently.
Google sets a cookie that expires in 2038 for anyone who visits any page of theirs and doesn't already have a Google cookie. They use a unique ID number in their cookie, and with this number they also log the Internet address (IP) number, date and time, search terms, and browser information. This is both unnecessary and scary.
There is nothing more revealing about a person than a history of that person's Google search terms. (Some of us use the Internet for something other than merely selling more and more widgets.)
Since Congress passed the Patriot Act last October, a showing of probable cause is not required for pen register or trap-and-trace information, and judges must grant the order. The definition of this sort of surveillance has been expanded for the Internet, and now includes "other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information." Search terms for engines such as Google are part of the URL address. The law's exclusion of "content" for this surveillance -- language that refers to the body of email messages -- is insufficient to exclude Web search terms in the URL. The FBI could set up Carnivore at Google (the feds will be happy to fork over the cost of any needed hardware or software), and we wouldn't even know about it. Similarly, the FBI can present a court order for Google's logs, from a judge who was required to sign without a showing of probable cause.
I was able to get the CIA to instantly withdraw their cookies this week. That's because even the CIA is accountable to the public (on the cookie issue at least) under federal guidelines. But there is no accountability for Google, even though the data they have collected is more revealing than anything the CIA has collected recently, by orders of magnitude.
How long before the feds zero in on Google's data? Why can't Google abandon most cookie use, and destroy logs after 30 days?
If they sit on their data without doing anything about their policies, they may wake up one day and discover that the feds have appropriated the entire thing. Already it may be too late; there's at least one former National Security Agency employee with a top secret clearance who is now a Google software engineer.
-- Daniel Brandt
Public Information Research, Inc.
This is probably the movie you saw.
It appears Google isn't interested in our ad ideas...they canceled mine:
------ Forwarded Message
From: adwords-support@google.com
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:06:30 -0800
To: xxx
Subject: Changes to your Google Adwords campaign
Hello xx,
We are not able to run the following ad(s) in Ad Group #1, of Campaign #1 you have created using the Google AdWords Select Advertising Program:
Cult Fiction?
Travolta believes in Xenu...
...should you?
www.xenu.net
Thank you for advertising on Google. At this time, we are not running ads for sites that advocate against any individual, group, or organization. We review ads on a case-by-case basis and reserve the right to not run certain ads, or certain categories of ads. Due to our current ads policy, we are unable to run your ad on Google.
Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring results. At the same time, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the
advertising we accept on our site, as noted in our advertising terms and conditions. Please note that the decisions we make concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver. We will continue to show search results for this type of site.
Please feel free to email us at adwords-support@google.com if you have further questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
------ End of Forwarded Message
[Insert the usual disclaimer here]