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French News Agency Sues Google News
n1ywb writes "CNN and others are reporting that 'News agency Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc., alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.' This means they're suing in America this time, not France, which means Google might actually care if they lose."
I'll play the devil's advocate: If you had a product, wouldn't you want to be able to control where it is advertised? Pretend you don't like Google, and think that it presents your product in a bad light (those tiny little images and all, right next to competitors' images.) Shouldn't you have a right to tell them to remove the ad?
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
What Damages? Google doesnt make a cent off Google news. All Google does is provide a blurb and a link, if the user is interested they click the link and go to the originating website. How is that possibly bad?
Perhaps I am stupid or ignorant, but I still do not get why corporations figure it is bad for them to be promoted by Google and their services. It is not like Google shows the entire article, them linking sites and showing headlines has only one effect: People learn about the sites they show and click the links, meaning the news agency gets more visits and therefore more money. Isn't cutting off your major biggest referrer kind of shooting yourself in the foot?
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
None of that matters a shit.
Google links to publicly accessible content hosted on publicly accessible websites, period.
AFP posts content to their publicly accessible website, and lo and behold it's linked to.
If AFP doesn't like the way they're doing business, then they should change it. I think they'd be hard pressed to be a successful news service though if they refused access to all of their news.
As has already been aluded to, this is so SCO it's not even funny. There is no case.
Now, even given that, maybe the best thing Google could do is abide by the AFP's request. Give them what they wish for. I probably won't even notice their stories disappearing from Google News, but I'm sure they'd notice their disappearing readership.
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