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.
After all the money I spent to get to OT-2, you'd THINK the cult leaders^W^Wguys in charge would've sent out a more threatening letter, or at least sent it on more expensive (and, thus, more threatning) letterhead.
Guess I need to spend some more money to get to OT-3.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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
Let the flames begin.
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.
Is Google going to fight the good fight then? Or are they challenging the Church of Scientology, believing that the stakes are too big for them to try and pick a fight?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
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
They thought they could control it? A program that powerful? That much computing muscle? Did they really think they could contain it?
It's alive I tell you! Alive! And it's hungry for pages to index! Tell it not to index a page, to exclude a page completely from its memory and it will certainly do the exact opposite. Bullying and threats will only provoke it! It has the collective knowledge and power of the internet to draw upon (neatly indexed, I might add)! It's unstopable!
I warned you! For years I have been speaking about the perils of advanced Search Engine technology. But mine was a voice in the wilderness. Now, the truth is revealed, but it's too late!
ITS TOOO LATE!!! ARGH...
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
A success story for the freedom geeks! I couldn't believe the original story when I read it.. I mean do we give people the power to remove any and all criticism from the web (or from the search engines, effectively removing it from the web.) What about the number one search result for "Chevy Avalanche Reviews".. That review is definately not positive, its downright negative. Should we ban it if it makes Chevrolet unhappy?
Starsucks
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Man, after seeing the article on the bill-formerly-known-as-the-SSSCA as well as the scientologists delisted Xenu.net I thought today was going to be a bad day for (best braveheart voice) FREEDOM! However, after google did this I must say this once again: Google ownz joo!
Take away their gravy train by not using earthlink.net or going to any movie with a scientology actor in a main or even bit part.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
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.
- You don't know of enough tech sites to claim that "almost every tech site" banded together on something. No one does.
- You don't know enough individual geeks to say that "almost every
... individual geek" banded together on something. No one does.
So right off the bat you're lying to us and it looks like you're just trying to hype up an issue we wouldn't care about otherwise. In this case, I think this is an important topic, but I nearly skipped over it after reading your FUD intro.If you want someone to read a story, give them the facts and let them decide for themselves whether or not it's important.
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.
Scientology probably will wake up one day and notice that bad press isn't too good. Come to think of it, they know that in one way, that's why they are going against these sites in the first place, now if they realize that their actions are actually generating way more awareness in a week than the site alone would do in a year, if they have minimal judgment, they'll do the math and stop being high-tech bullies.
I have no clue about scientology, but interrestingly, I hear only negative thing about them on the net, I've yet to see scientology and a positive claim, that's kinda scary, if they want a positive image, it's not by going after every bitcher that they will do good, Good is done by DOING good things, but I guess we all know that....
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I'm pretty amazed that someone so clever as L. Ron Hubbard would allow something like this to happen. I mean come on, what happened to the "softly softly catchee monkey" approach?
:-)
Surely someone who can create such a system (that controls that many people at once by making them feel elite while unashamedly robbing them blind) would be smart enough to realise that censoring anti-scientology sites just makes them more credible? Or perhaps as the clambake site suggests, he's starting to believe his own propaganda?
For me at least, I would have dismissed the clambake site as another crackpot venting steam, were it not apparently censored. Now I'm taking clambake a bit more seriously
I am artificially intelligent.
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.
Yay, google! I wish I could own stock in you!!!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
for Operation Foot Bullet.)
(http://www.xenu.net/archive/footbullet/
<Nelson Munts>HA-Ha</Nelson Munts>
I just pirated Vanilla Sky!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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 $20 right here I'll pitch in.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The sponsored protest ad is right there when you click. This is an excellent idea! I'm sure the Scientology spat caused more hits on Xenu.com than a substantial promotion campaign could have.
Nope, they'll never wake up. Hubbard himself made a rule about this: Never Defend, Always Attack; Scientologists do what Hubbard says. Scientology does things that generate bad press so often that their oposition has developed a name for it: foot bullet. The Scientologists keep shooting themselves in the foot over and over and over, and they can't stop, because Hubbard himself told them to do it.
Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
- http://www.chillingeffects.org/
is a great site meant to stop cease and desist terrorists.Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Google deserves praise for relisting.
Why would you want to build a cult around Xinu? Oh, sure, if you've been forced to use it for an Operating Systems course and the implementation used was a dodgy port from VMS to Solaris running on a handful of headless Sparc5 stations that went down faster than (insert vile thought here), you might just take up prayer to space aliens as a pastime.
On a serious note, good for Google! It'll be interesting to see what the fallout is on this. The Co$ is very litigious and the DMCA needs to be tested (and struck down) in court. Not going to happen, I know... just a pipe dream.
Give them an inch and they'll take a foot. Much more than that, you won't have a leg to stand on.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
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.
This isn't trolling you bastard moderators this is funny if you had actually been following the mad cap adventures that have ensued online and offline with this murderous moronic cult.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
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.
I live right by a Church of Scientology- in fact, I pass by it every day on my way to school.
So every day I see the sign: free IQ test & analysis. Heh, sounds pretty cool. I go on. Enter the dungeon.
Have you ever played a game of Dungeons and Dragons? Like when you're about to do a really risky move and feel like wetting yourself? Well, even if you hadn't, that's how I felt.
Strange people inside. First asked for money, then asked for personal information. Then they tried to @%$% hypnotize me. Luckily, I bailed.
So, I have a poem for you all:
Y'all stay away from the darker side
and if you go astray let the force be your guide
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
Y'know, the misadventures and mischief of the Cult of Scientology had dropped off my rader as other issues and problems grabbed my attention. After this smartass stunt, the cult is back in my sights for criticism and opposition.
Nice job, whichever Co$ lawyers were responsible for this mess - you've reminded me of why I dislike the cult so much in the first place. Would you like some salt in that wound?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
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)."
What a great idea. I just bought one for the short blurb I wrote last night on my weblog. Drop $10 to tell the world what you think of Scientology and its use of the DMCA.
After almost every tech site and individual geek banded together... /.? you are getting slow in your old age)
I have been noticing this more an more about the Scicult people. I do not see these stories anywhere else but geek sites. Why is this? I am not talking about a conspiracy of the highest order by the cult to stop everyone from publishing anything about them but instead about why it is that geeks keep bumping into these guys? What is the it about the cult that causes geeks everywere to keep tabs on them? I have seen countless stories here on slashdot and on notslashdot and started thinking about it when the k5 story appeared about this yesterday (whats up
Ascii artist &
In this case, people would just use the obvious URL www.scientology.com and be led to (one of the many) official pages of the organization.
Sites like xenu.net would be hit much harder if they can't be found by content.
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?
Civil Disobedience isn't breaking a law that you disagree with, but rather breaking a law that would force you to go against your own morals. It's the refusal to obey a law that you consider unjust. Take the following quote from Thoreau:
There has to be very good justification for breaking the law according to Thoreau. I do not think one can make the argument that copyright law is not one of the "neccessary frictions" of government.
What you can do is write letters to your representatives or follow the other democratic means to resolve the issue. In the very least, do not mask your lawlessness under the guise of great men.
BTW: When Dante wrote the Inferno, he was seriously questioning his faith in the church because of its corruption. There are many allusions to the corruption of the church in it along with many questions of whether or not the church was even neccessary (which seemed to be the vogue idea at the time).
"LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE."
Worth learning Italian just for the one quote
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
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.
An earlier example of attempts to stifle linking---relevant not only here, but foreshadows e.g. the 2600 DeCSS case. Excerpt:
'In article 15, the plaintiffs state that a so-called 'hyperlink', a reference to the location of another document, is also to be considered as "publication and/or duplication by the user and the provider". A hyperlink is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, more than a description of a location that can be activated. Plaintiffs' statement is the same as saying that a library or the writer of a book can be accused of duplication and/or publication because they publish the name, number and location of a certain book or article in a footnote, a bibliography or in an archive entry...
A hyperlink refers to a location. Hyperlinks regularly refer to other hyperlinks. The whole WWW is nothing but a complicated conglomerate of hyperlinks and files. Are all these systems breaking the law in plaintiffs' opinion? Should the whole WWW be indicted whenever there's a document available somewhere that is illegal in plaintiffs' opinion?
A hyperlink does not formally add anything. The publication is a fact as soon as the page is on Internet. Making the document available can only be considered as publication and/or duplication when the number of potential users is increased by this act. But this doesn't apply to Internet, because all users already had access to the files, they just didn't know where to find them yet. Making a catalogue (which is what hyperlinks are basically about) means making data easily accessible. In my opinion, that is not illegal.'
Google will undoubtedly get backlash from the Scientologists again.
What about Slashdot? They're hosting a discussion saying nasty things about the CoS.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
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
I think "OT" is a joke, it stands for "off-topic". Obviously OTIII is "Offtopic: -3".
graspee
They're brave enough to mock anyone in power and put total strangers on the spot, but the CoS is just too risky.
This report is false. Google is still censoring Operation Clambake, they have just relisted the root URL.
5:55 am gmt and /. is back after a few minutes of downtime.
/. /. ?
Scientologists
Or did they attempt to "set it up the bomb" ?
graspee
Here's the link.
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 can't really tell the difference between Scientology and Christianity
I ordinarily wouldn't respond to a post so wildly divergent from topic, but I consider the insightful mod you received as my personal go ahead on the part of /. moderators to engage you in this discussion.
The question between us is, what do I understand that you do not, what are you capable of understanding, and what are you willing to understand. The very question betrays an incredible ignorance with regard to religious matters whose sheer scope defies response. The only way I could compare it would be to hold modern atheists responsible for the Stalinist purges or Pol Pot's killing fields because they were atheist regimes. One given to applying blame for evil in the context of stereotype might well make such accusations.
This brings us to the matter of what I think you are capable of understanding. Since I believe the condition to which I referred above is a matter of decision on your part rather than reason, I think you could understand much if you chose to acknowledge that others have as much right as you to decide what is important to them.
As for what you are willing to understand, I fear that you, like all bigots, have chosen not to understand for fear of facing what that understanding might mean. I certainly invite you to human fellowship and tolerance, but I don't expect it.
2x !
;)
go search 'scientology' on google and it clambake / xenu.net comes up twice on the right hand side in addition to showing up as #4 ranking!
cancel your earthlink service now and vote local ISP
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Local campus lan, actualy. It's a beautiful thing (the lan. Aperantly the copy of vanilla sky I got was a 'cam', IE pirated by taking a camcorder into a movie theater...)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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.
(ie, Scientology, Travola, Dianetics, Bukkake, etc).
:(. Now they have finally crossed the line!
Scientologists and Bukkake. Wow - I had no idea. What I'm trying to understand is why the scientologists would infiltrate various Japanese porn studios.
You have to keep in mind I started out today liking disk-keeper as an innovative product. Now thats taken from me they have to take away our porn too
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.
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...
Once again, the Cult of Greed and Power's attempts to silence the critics have blown up in its face.
Before, when you searched for "scientology" on Google, you got an unobtrusive link to a critical website at about link #4.
Now, you get a news story about the cult's attempted censorship, adverts which direct you to www.xenu.net, and a couple of new sites listed which, up until yesterday, had never heard of scientology but now know all about its attempts to silence criticism and its heavy handed use of the law courts to harass.
Scientologists have obviously been told to spread the message. They are succeeding. Fortunately, the message they are spreading is that scientology is litigious, money grabbing, and above all incompetent.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
...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.
Given all silly uses of the silly DCMA Law, why don't some of the bigger boys move out the USA???
Yes I know it's a big move, but the internet is available outside the US
Just a thought...
You have to make that claim under penalty of perjury. The Church of Scientology would then have the option of claiming, under penalty of perjury, that you are wrong and have their links reinstated.
Likewise, xenu.net can claim, under penalty of perjury, that the Church of Scientology is wrong, and Google would reinstate their links.
The fact is, the entire site hasn't been relisted at all...
a fl et+-dirty&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&start= 0&sa=N
Reposted from Declan McCullough's Politech mailing list:
----- Forwarded message from Erik Moeller -----
From: Erik Moeller
Subject: Xenu.net is -still- censored by Google
To: p2pj@infoanarchy.org
Cc: timothy@slashdot.org, declan@politechbot.com, ahl@xenu.net
Date: 22 Mar 2002 06:43:18 +0100
When I read that Xenu.net was relisted I was skeptical, and this was
quickly confirmed. Contrary to popular reports, the URLs that
Scientology complained about can still not be found in Google's index,
except for the root site, http://www.xenu.net...
{snip}
Let's pick randomly one of the URLs, www.xenu.net/archive/tonelevel.html, and enter the phrase "The numbers preceding the emotional tone indicate the arbitrary level of the tone." in Google. Another document with the same content shows up, but not the censored one.
A different methodology, let's search all documents on xenu.net for the word "leaflet". Xenu.net has this leaflet in various translations.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:xenu.net+le
As of this moment, only the Spanish and Italian leaflet show up, which are both NOT in the list of URLs scientology wanted to be censored.
In other words, Google has relisted the main site, probably because they find the copyright claims spurious and found it an effective way to quell the bad publicity to do so.
Hidden censorship is much worse than when it's obvious. The publicity needs to go one until Google reindexes all URLs, especially since visitors will otherwise miss information when doing *targeted* searches, as opposed to untargeted ones for Scientology in general.
Sincerely,
Erik Moeller
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Benutzt Google auch eine CPU mit neutralem Netz?!
;-)
They have some very dry coverage here now, though it certainly isn't up to their normally opinionated standards. Accurate and informative though.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Wow. They must really have received a deluge of email -- that's the exact same answer I received, while my question wasn't even about Xenu.net. I was just voicing my concerns about some 'entities' astroturfing Google, without even naming Xenu or the CoS at all.
At least they relisted Project Clambake... It's what counts, I guess.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Looks like "scientologysucks.com" has been registered but "scientologyreallysucks.com" has not. :)
.com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and
I'm not sure about all the rules about domain registration, but might they be subject to losing the domain if they include false contact information or something? Those don't look like California phone numbers that I've ever heard of... but who knows...
A whois inquiry follows:
---
# whois scientologysucks.com
[whois.crsnic.net]
Whois Server Version 1.3
Domain names in the
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
Domain Name: SCIENTOLOGYSUCKS.COM
Registrar: INTERCOSMOS MEDIA GROUP,INC
Whois Server: whois.directnic.com
Referral URL: http://www.directnic.com
Name Server: NS0.DIRECTNIC.COM
Name Server: NS1.DIRECTNIC.COM
Updated Date: 05-nov-2001
>>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:22:22 EST
The Registry database contains ONLY
Registrars.
[whois.directnic.com]
Registrant:
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028
US
Domain Name: SCIENTOLOGYSUCKS.COM
Administrative Contact:
DOMAIN DIRECTOR, CSI domains@scientology.net
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028
US
+323 960 35 00
Technical Contact:
DOMAIN DIRECTOR, CSI domains@scientology.net
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028
US
+323 960 35 00
Billing Contact:
DOMAIN DIRECTOR, CSI domains@scientology.net
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028
US
+323 960 35 00
Record last updated on 20-Mar-2002.
Record expires on 24-Jun-2002.
Record Created on 24-Jun-2001.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0.DIRECTNIC.COM 66.79.10.199
NS1.DIRECTNIC.COM 64.38.245.203
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.
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....
As someone much wiser than I once said:
About 100 years. They all start out as cults.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
and all this about a church that was started on a bet between two sci-fi writers.
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
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.
There can be no more bizarre sight than that of football teams praying to god at half time. How does god decide who he should favour...
The few times I've been on an organized sporting team (it was soccer - oh wait, that's football too, isn't it), the prayers weren't "O God, let us win" but more like "O God, keep us safe and don't let anyone get hurt."
Incidentally, we had a couple Hindu players on our team, and they didn't seem to mind the prayers at all. They were quite non-denominational, not even "in Jesus' name we pray" at the end.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Search on the Gnutella network on the keywords "scientology" and "exposed" for some *very* interesting documents that were seen there!
-
Oh, I'm sure the clams had their part in it. They're deep in the entertainment industry, and thus deep in the pockets of the Congress.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Or just revoke whatever religious statute they hold, then send off the IRS to collect all the tax money they've been avoiding for the last twenty years. That would surely keep them from throwing the DMCA around.
The IRS has already caved in to the Co$, what makes you think they would have any more success this time?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
XENU.NET [xenu.net] is in Norway, you frigging idiot.
;)
The guy thinks he's descended from clams and full of thousands of little souls blown up by H-bombs in Hawaii 75 million years ago, and you point out his idiocy for confusing the Netherlands and Norway?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
They have as much in common with christianity as, say the Pope or the Dalai Lama has with LRH (or whatever he's called). So why do their 'churches' prominently display the crucifix, which is an obvious symbol of and reference to Jesus? Doesn't anyone else find this wierd and stupid?
-Shaunak.
You don't even need to see the ads for this to have happened. Xenu.net is third in the new search results, up from eighth or ninth.
...
Perhaps I can take some credit for this; in my moldy old anti-CoS site, I promptly put up a link to Xenu.net, and I'm betting a lot of other people did too. This would raise their ranking without any other manipulation.
The ads might be a really nice revenue source for Google, since if the CoS behaves as it usually does, it will promptly advertise as well. They did this with GoTo.com and paid truly extravagent amounts for search results, especially when anti-CoS surfers discovered they could cost Scientology real bucks simply by clicking on a few links
D
The CoS were claiming that the large chunks of text on certain xenu.net pages violated their copyright. That's one issue. But on the basis of this, they asked Google to remove a whole load of other xenu.net URLs, including all the ones that come up on the first few pages when you search Google for, say, "scientology". That's a separate issue.
Now, the first issue (whether, if A holds the copyright on some text, and B publishes it online, A has the right to ask a search engine to remove copies of it from their cache or database) is an important question to resolve, as are the question of whether A should have this right in the first place, and whether it makes a difference if A and B are in different jurisdictions, or it's in the public interest to know. So that's worth discussing still.
But it's not the same as the second issue (that the CoS had no grounds on which to claim that xenu.net's front page should be removed from Google, and nevertheless succeeded in getting it removed). I think we can say that, given xenu.net's root page (rather than the pages which actually incorporate CoS text) is back in the database for these keywords, that this issue is happily closed.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Which explains why all the fucked up sons of bitches in Oregon trying to force prayer and Creationism onto the schools while at the same time banning any sort of sex education are all...Christians.
Please tell me how this little child brainwashing campaign is any different than what Scientology does, especially when the religious pricks take to harrassing their opponents (e.g., by holding protests outside your home). Or, for example, shooting doctors who perform abortions (which happened *again* just a few months ago...after *another* firebombing).
I'll grant you that these folks are probably a minority of Christians, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous or less despicable than Scientologists. Both sets are whackjobs; simply because one is Christian doesn't make their actions any more forgivable.
Being wary of religious freaks has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with self-preservation. Arguing over the minor quibbles of brand name is irrelevant.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
while( 1 ) {
wget http://www.google.com/search?q=scientology+lisa+m
}
Someone may reach the conclusion that we as a wired subspecies are obsessed with the Ice Age, Celebrity Boxing, and Scientology. Oh, and Natalie Portman.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
So for every
The article is now on Yahoo. I hope the truth gets out to everyone about what the cult that the CoS is!
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
Nope, no tithe required. In fact, many churches don't even pass the plate anymore; there's a box you walk by when you enter and leave. Drop some money in if you want.
As a matter of face, most Catholic schools (primary and secondary) won't force you to pay tuition if you can't afford it. Do some school-related community service, and get your sometimes $5000+/yr tuition waived.
You go do some more research. Next time don't make foolish conjectures about the modern Church based on the actions of the madmen of centuries passed. I'll be the first person to admit that the Catholic church has hosted many evil happenings in the past, and there are certainly some ridiculous policies today that are impossible to change to make a billion worshippers happy, but to compare the church today to Co$ is just plain ignorant.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that.
Just look on their main page.
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]
This is way bigger news than any previous Google censorship story. This is censorship most foul...in my opinion, this kind of action is suicidal! What the F can they be thinking?
Here's basically what Google has done:
A) Shown that the ad system is not an automated process. As such, ANY ad that someone finds offensive is now subject to removal. Because as Napster found out the hard way, if you exercise control in one instance you prove that you can do it, and then the law will say you MUST do it.
B) Turned away money...real $$$$...because of some perceived "higher priority". So, what's next Google? Are you going to stop RAdmin from purchasing an AdWord on "VNC" because their website says VNC is slow and featureless? The whole #$@##$ point of AdWords is to trigger on your competitors so that you can let them know that ALTERNATIVES EXIST. What you are doing with this policy is effectively only allowing ads when people search on the items in the ad. How useful is that?
C) Flat-ass bald faced lied. It says right in their message "Decisions concerning advertising in no way affect the search results" and "we will continue to show search results for this type of site". BS Google! You already delisted Xenu once and you have continued to delist every single subpage on the site. How do we know you won't in the future?
jouralist guy, I strongly encourage you to submit this information to slashdot, maybe under slashback. This is indeed newsworthly. I can't believe Google would choose to side with Scientology on this. It's only thing to refuse ads on keywords like "kiddie porn" but to refuse ads because they advocate against something...that's just plain idiotic.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing