Slashdot Mirror
Google Begins Removing AFP From Google News
An anonymous reader writes "Google has began removing web-based content of Paris-Based news agency Agence France Presse (AFP), from the Google News service. This past weekend we reported that the Agence France Presse had sued Google for displaying their photo's, stories, and news headlines on Google News without permission. AFP is seeking damages of around $17.5 million and requested the courts that Google News is not to display any of its copyrighted material. It appears Google is complying with what the AFP is requesting. Google doesn't have a timetable for when all AFP links and content will be removed from Google News, but the company is actively working on the matter, said Steve Langdon, a Google spokesman."
AFP or APF or FP?
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
Good move Google but what happens if every news organization sues or threatens to sue? Where shall we get our news from?
Just to be safe, Google should remove all AFP sites not only from news, but from all portions of Google. Google certainly wouldn't want to risk further harm to AFP by keeping them in any of their indexes.
Congress passed a law... it is now referred to as the Agence FREEDOM Presse... Please update the submission.
I would think that the news agency would want to be featured on Google to attract more visitors to its site! Apparently they are simply out for money when no damage has actually been done. Sure it's copyrighted material...
I think this is a case of a dinosaur making last ditch efforts to try to save themself from certain destruction. AFP wants to try to control the flow of news (from them to other newspapers) and defend the natural monopolies involved with physical media since it's hard for customers to compare items for free. Now that AFP isn't listed, customers will just see other sites and flock to them first. This is what happens when you apply the old methods of business to the new world.
--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
If they don't want people to have access to their content they sure are a wierd organization. It's not like Google was preventing people from clicking to their approved distributors.
Will probably to sink AFP into the very very bottom of search results if not absent totally. AFP might have the right, but I'm sure they know the consequences of dealing with the #1 search engine.
I'm not sure why this particular newspaper chose this action in the first place... it was only getting them more website hits, and more publicity. Google didn't have any legal defense in this issue, unfortunately. Seems as though the AFP is just cutting off their nose to spite their face; fun.
What the flip?!?! It seems like it would be good publicity for their site. It's not like Google is claiming rights to the news or anything.
This scene is somewhat reminiscent of the scene from the Incredibles where victims of crimes start suing the superheroes for helping them.
Google has become the doorway to the internet. Your site doesn't exist until Google indexes it. Anyone who sues them isn't trying to prevent copyright infringement or reproduction of their data, they are most likely looking for a reason to press charges and make a quick franc.
..for promoting their news site! Geez, who does google think they are?
MABASPLOOM!
Ok don't laugh but when I read the first line of that post it said "Google has begun removing web-based content of Paris Hilton..." and I didn't even second guess the fact that Google could have such power.
With respect to the actual story... well... what can you say? You know how the French are...
Viva la RESISTANCE!
How long must we be a victim of fate and circumstance?
As long as it takes to change our minds.
"...I do it because I am French. I am a bad mother fucker, am I not?"
How else will anyone find them excpept through google.
Idiots. They're getting what they deserve.
It suffices to affornt French bureaucracy just once to realize that one shouldn't even bother to try to rationalize how they function.
Maybe something like,
We are very very sorry for linking to you from our side of the interweb. Rest assured, Google.com will never link to your site again.
Have a nice day.
Whatver reputation the French may have in the US as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," this incident proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that when carrying a firearm, the French will not hesitate to use deadly force against their own feet.
... one would have to click on it, and whatever ads they are paid for will show up. Quoting 4 lines of what they say within the context of a story should fall under "fair use", IMHO.
I think it is more of a move to discourage "checking news online" in general, not that potential reader is directed to their website through google...
Paul B.
They don't "get" how the internet works.
/. kneejerk "But without rigid enforcement of copyrights without regard to merit, artists will all shrivel and die!!!!"
Now, queue, customary
is there anything on that ??? newsite that I can't find elsewhere else that would be of interest to me?
How about if I point to other italian news sites?
Why is a site called overclocker's club covering a story about google vs. French news?
What's next, knitting.slashdot.org?
AFP is requiring us to remove this article, supposedly, they own the copyright to this article. In other things, imgaine if Google News and Slashdot merged....
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
it's outrageous!
They cannot honestly think that their site being on google is a bad thing in any way conceivable.
but then, this doesn't seem to be about honesty at all, now does it?
AFP make their money by selling their stories to other media organizations. If they allow their news to be disseminated without the appropriate fee being paid (as Google News is doing), they will be cutting off their main source of revenue.
All AFP is doing is using legitimate means to protect a legitimate business model.
This seems the perfect opportunity for the owners of AFP to self-liquidate and get out of the media business, while blaming it all on Google. I mean, it works quite well for SCO - they get to take risks with play money, and still keep millions in wages and stock sales. Are the rules in France any less forgiving than in the U.S. for business owners who act like this?
Really - once you have the equivalent of a couple million US dollars, it all just seems like a meager game for power. You will live comfortably in a large residence for the rest of your life, unless you squander money blindly at that point. The quality of the marble floors does not change the quality of your life, only the respect of some other wealthy people. Games like SCO and this are to be expected.
Yes, but accurate.
Either one of two things is true in this case...
1) They don't understand fully how the internet works
2) They're looking to make a quick Euro.
Neither is a very flattering conclusion for a news agency.
I suppose this lawsuit is France's Maginot line against the invading Internet.
Sigh, LOOK at their site, they do not even have a freaking banner they are not interested in hits on their webpage, EVERYONE who is a potential customer for AFP knows about them, trust me, they are a huge news agency, not some stupid news webpage..
Am I missing some obvious reason that you're using AFP and APF acronyms interchangeably? The wire service's name is AFP.
Kriston
Teach those assholes a lesson. Really, Google linking to them looked to me like FAIR USE that could only improve traffic to the French news site - and the news site's profits!
:-)
I can not imagine how the Google News links could do anything but help make more profit for news sites that Google links to.
Google News could link to my sites anyday - I will not complain
Google is a search engine.
They're helping these idiots get customers. Free advertising.
If you're not on Google, you won't be found.
So now they won't be found. They'll fold, but be secure in the knowledge that Google didn't show a few pictures to guide potential customers to them.
No wonder the French wine industry is in the toilet... they can't even sell wine anymore.
That's nothin'! At least you had paper! Back in my day, we had to carve into stone tablets if we wanted to write something down. We had to carve rocks just to carve into rocks! You kids and your email and your gmail and your paper mail... In my day, if we wanted to send someone a message we had to train Carrier Pterodactyls. You have no idea how rough it was... they had to pick up our messages and drop them at the right cave. Do you have any idea how many of us were killed just as a result of Pterodactyls just dropping news tablets???
How long must we be a victim of fate and circumstance?
As long as it takes to change our minds.
"Professional journalists"
Not in France. Surely you mean Germany or England?
They know that they could make a lot of money off of this lawsuit against Google- a big, expanding company making millions.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Google only provides links, not content. So Google is providing free advertising. And if AFP is giving away content for free on their own site, to anyone, it's really hard to see how they're being harmed.
They sell wire services. Google news is not a substitute. If it were, their own home page would kill their business, and presumably it isn't.
Google also, and much more quietly, is removing the National Vanguard, known as a racist neo-Fascist organization, from its list of news sources. This raises the question, how the heck did a site like National Vanguard (no, I won't link to it) wind up on Google's list of news sources in the first place?
And the battle between the good of free speech and the good of shutting up morons continues...
was I the only one who thought APF calling Google's mother a hamster a little out-of-line?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
This "cheese eating surrender monkeys" joke sure took hold. I'm just curious, though... Have you ever heard of the hundred years war? How about Napoleon conquering most of Europe?
There's no historical basis for saying the French have an inherent tendency to surrender. There was the one big incident, but given the weaponry the Germans had and the fact that France was right there next to Germany, they didn't have much choice. England, America, and Russia all had the protection of distance.
I'm not French, but ignoring Napoleon... Jesus, that's stupid.
an interpretation of the word that I am not familiar with...coming soon, Linus sues OSTG
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
That is all.
exactly! google can no longer safely index any page with AFP content.
removing all pages with any AFP content is the only way to be 100% safe.
I see you've mastered that little art.
AFP is now officially irrelevant. If you're not on Google, you simply don't exist.
P.S. No wonder finland caved so easily to the Nazi's. I assume you're the pride and joy of that country.
http://www.thbz.org/e2/french_surrender.php
This is a list of French Surrenders.
You're Welcome!
If they allow their news to be disseminated without the appropriate fee being paid (as Google News is doing),
If a link, a headline and a half-paragraph quotation is "disseminating", we're all fucked.
Can't wait to see where we go next with this amazing new logic. "Amazon.com book reviews banned in france because people were quoting sentences from the books they reviewed, the book companies make their money by selling those books to customers, if they allow those sentences to be disseminated without the appropriate fee (as amazon.com book reviewers do) they will be cutting off their main source of revenue"...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
and by the way, here's a chronicle article that says most of those freebies are bullshit or not worth it to the average person. chronicle
Everyone loves Google, so it's easy to mock AFP. But if this were being done by a site that everyone loves to hate, I think people would tend to side with AFP.
As a side note, Agence France Presse is one of the Big Three (with AP and Reuters). It takes great pride in the quality of its photography.
http://www.resourceshelf.com/legaldocs/afpvgoogle1 .pdf
/cynicism on
/cynicism off
Please do not even consider a deal to settle up and take advantage of the referral links.
Please allow me to keep my lower market viewership.
It would have been nice had they worked out something. I understand where
they are coming from but it would have worked in their best interest
to have a larger viewing market.
I don't understand why google doesn't:
(1) blacklist all french IP's from its spiders,
(2) Stick a big notice on the front page if you're from france saying:
"If you're from france you are not allowed to use this web site. If you don't like this complain to your government. And we fart in your general direction!"
"It takes great pride in the quality of its photography."
But apparently less pride in its management decisions?
British. Although the world's largest news outlet, 90% of its revenues come from selling financial data.
Apparently not as the AFP sees it. Having the ability to scour the playing ground at speed and unmatched power, it's inevitable the Google will dominate the Net. When that happens, it runs into opportunities untold, and the lesser players who might be a leader in its own right (e.g. AFP) sees that as a right to protect its ground in the open arena.
Ultimately Search Engines' business is to provide information for consumers, and providing that information can come in a variety of manners the consumers are comfortable with e.g., Google News. Having the ability to scour and reporting the most arresting of subjects is seen as a threat to others focussing on narrower subjects.
Instead of copyrighting its subject matters, entities like AFP could and SHOULD leverage on the Internet's openness and exposure to enhance its core subject matter, integrity, and prospect as an attractive business liaisons with consumers.
Likewise, for the big players, they need to take similar notes. If you accepted that this is level playing ground, and small players emerging with much more speed and flexibility that you may have, then having the same integrity and rules applied, you should not switch stands and whine about small players stealing from your treasure chests when all is done and considered fair game based on consumers dogged ingenuity.
Think, make not laws that goverened only your own interests.
You must be one of those soccer hooligans we keep hearing about. You were so cute in Eurotrip.
Suck my cock, you fucking French faggot sack of dog shit. Die, scumbag childfucker.
Google is going to have to clear a lot of images in order to get rid of French material in its news listings. Not only are they going to remove Jerry Lewis fan material, they are going to remove pictures such as this one. Leave nothing French online, google!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Give AFP what they ask for, even if it isn't what they're going to find that they want...
So much for "Free press", eh...
Google is not complying with AFP, they are punishing them.
I don't understand how this case was even brought through the courts far enough for us to hear about it. Were these news stories password protected? Did Google crack a membership and STEAL them? I hardly think so..
Google never claimed to be the owner or creator of the content collected from AFP, they showed a blip of it and linked to the original story. I don't see any infringement there. Otherwise aren't news sites that quote other news sites with credit infringing as well?
Anyway, if they wanted Google to stop they should have changed their robots.txt (le_robeautes.txt)
-- lol pwned
User-agent: * /
Disallow:
AFP didn't do their homework, and that's a poor way to protect any investment.
To sum up: AFP, of their own volition, paid to get on the web. They completely ignored RFCs. They ignored standard practices by established companies in their business sector. They wait until $17M in damages accrue, which doesn't happen overnight. Only then do they cry foul, and sue using copyright law to protect something they won't protect themselves when they have the chance. If you were a judge, which way would you rule?
Notice that I didn't even need to talk about fair use rights. France doesn't use the US Constitution. My arguments are purely economic, and I'm fairly sure the French understand money. If any lawyers at Google are reading this, please fight this suit. AFP are being unreasonable, and need to be taught a lesson.
A lot of people here don't seem to understand AFP's business model. AFP doesn't want people directed to its site because it doesn't make a living offering its content to the wide world. Rather, they sell their content to newspapers and the like, who then distribute it. Some of these outlets buy certain content which they levy at a premium to their paying customers, and other contents they distribute the way we're used to seeing it. Therefor, AFP wishes to maintain it's role of providing content to the final distributors. How is that bad? AFP happens to be one of the most respected news agencies in the world for the quality and reliability of its reporting. Let's praise them for that and leave them to choose whatever business model they feel more comfortable with...
You had rocks ? Man, some people are just born into it, aren't they?
Google News is basically just a search engine for news. How do these fools think people link to their site?! One has to wonder if their trying a cash out scam. I would counter sue with extortion.
Did you even read TFA? AFP is complaining because its photographs are having its copyright data removed. That is not fair use, and if you actually thought about the issue before having some mindless knee-jerk reaction you might even notice.
Is french news really worth $17.5 Mil?
Crying over Google linking them... it's not like Google displays full stories. Tiny-ass thumbnails and small snippits from their news stories that link to the full ones is hardly something to cry about.
Free exposure? No thanks, but I'll sue you!
It's just Crap.
Those of you who think one of the world's big three news agencies (along with Associated Press and Reuters) needs to scam 17 million dollars obviously have no idea what kinds of budgets these agencies work with. These AFP articles have really shown how most of the slashdot crowd just follow the leader in a mindless manner. "Oh no! Someone is complaining to google! They must be evil, nevermind what the issue is about, let's stomp on them to make ourselves feel warm and fuzzy inside!"
Google doesn't have a timetable for when all AFP links and content will be removed from Google News, but the company is actively working on the matter
Update Google.NewsLinks set Link = NULL where Agency = 'APF'
Oy... now there's an overnight job if I ever saw one.
Typically I have a policy of not feeding the trolls, but I had to do a quick breakdown on this.
Did you even read TFA?
Yes, I have.
AFP is complaining because its photographs are having its copyright data removed.
The article in question (http://www.overclockersclub.com/?read=1147351) refers to AFP being upset that Google is using their copyrighted works with out permission. I checked it again. From TFA: Agence France Presse had sued Google for displaying their photo's, stories, and news headlines on Google News without permission. I don't see anything in the article talking about copyright data being removed from photographs.
That is not fair use,
Who said it was? I wasn't suggesting that AFP should let Google use its material without compensation, I was suggesting that a better solution, other then a lawsuit, would be to work out a deal with Google so they could make a few bucks and keep the international exposure. I'm not sure you quite understand what "fair use" is, or how it doesn't apply to this situation at all, or moreover how nobody has even brought it up.
and if you actually thought about the issue before having some mindless knee-jerk reaction you might even notice.
I'm trying to notice. But so far the only mindless knee jerk reaction being shown without understanding things has come from you. Though I do have to wonder, are you really that stupid, or is this a joke?
Like I said, I generally don't feed the trolls, but sometimes a person can be so good at being misinformed, spewing forth the most insane things that are so totally wrong I have to break it down just to make sure I'm not in some sort of bizzaro world where up is down and cats chase dogs.
The Internet is generally stupid
All i can think is... Do the french like giving us reasons to hate them?
http://www.DaveNet.biz/
AFP's business model isn't to run a service to deliver news to readers directly. What they do is sell content to news organizations. This means that if you run a newspaper, you pay AFP for the right to reprint their stories.
Google is getting the AFP content from these newspapers as a third party, and not as a subscriber to AFP, who probably don't give a rat's ass at the moment about making you go over to their site. You, as an individual who reads the news, are not their customer.
The thumbnails all directly link to the place where they appeared, where the copyright line may be clearly seen in full. Whether that line is visible on google news doesn't matter; the courts at least in America seem to have been pretty clear that if you thumbnail an image linked somewhere else and link the original, this isn't publishing and any copyright issues that image may hold aren't relevant because only the actual host is publishing the image, you're just linking it.
if this were being done by a site that everyone loves to hate, I think people would tend to side with AFP.
No I think if this were anyone else we'd be instead of concentrating on "OMFG IT'S GOOGLE" concentrating on the real issue, which is that AFP is expecting the traditional concepts of fair use that every website that's ever excerpted something and then linked it-- you know, which google news didn't invent-- to be reordered for them.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"and therefore have no idea as to the scope of AFP's influence within France"
That's roughly the equivalent of saying "you have no idea as to the scope of [X]'s influence in the greater Jacksonville area.
So the direct readers of AFP won't notice any difference at all, and the users of Google News will stop visiting AFP. Hmm, maybe that makes sense to them because they wish to have it removed, but it certainly don't make much sense to me.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Wow.
Arrogant, accusatory, and completely wrong.
You must be French too!
"so everybody stops buying from de facto newswire because it's not on google news, which doesn't really matter at all in the 'rest of the world'?"
No. Re-read the story.
AFP sells photos to different news organizations. The NYT, London Times, Washington Post, Hong Kong, Tokoy, pretty much everywhere.
Those newspapers *WANT* Google to index their pages. What AFP is doing is preventing 3rd parties from being indexed by Google.
So the end result will be that news sites sill be less likely to use AFP photos, because once they do, they will not be indexed by Google.
Hope that's clearer why not being on google will damage AFP in a way they don't comprehend. Its almost as if they don't understand the Internet. But that's not surprising since they still advertise that you should call them on an ISDN line. Welcome to 1990.
They really don't get it.
Those posters who agreethis hurts AFP's business aren't entirely wrong. Their services are as often abused in the print world as on the web, tales of journalists taking relatively innocuous wire service grabs and blowing them up into controversies are too legion to mention; many urban myths got started that way. That's as much "without attribution" as sticking on a page without mentioning the source.
But the real reason it WILL hurt AFP is that they will no longer be on the web radar screens of their real customers. In the relatively small highly-competitive market they operate in, such marginal disadvantages DO count, which is precisely why they tend to overlook much of their print customer's errant journos.
But let's not point out the bloody obvious, shall we? Much more DILLIGENT to spend serious money and time on lawsuits. Idiots.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
That AFP?
You can't handle the truth.
"Google Surrenders to France"?
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
You, sir, are yet another ass that's spouted his mouth off without realizing what the story is. Google News isn't spidering the AFP site. They're spidering the sites of AFP's customers, and republishing content, without paying AFP the fees that they charge their subscribers for the privilege to republish that content.
Google news is still beta, it generates no revenue for google, there are no banners on google news. Of course google benefits greatly from this feature but there was an article on a certan blog about google not quite sure what they will do with google news because if they take it out of beta and begin making money from it then they will be liable for stealing other peoples news articles. But it implied under US law that if they were not making any money off it then they were no different then a blogger. Which now doesn't make sense to me because private party is certanly different then a corporation.
Anyone else renember this article? about 6 months ago or more.
Google News isn't just a search engine for news. It takes considerable pains to group stories meaningfully, and present in its front page an overview of the news. It definitely competes to some degree with traditional news publishers; but not completely, of course, because none of its content is original. (None of this applies to the Google search engine front page, whose design and functionality is very different in this regard.)
A key question, then, is whether Google News should be seen as a search engine which merely happens to index news sites, or as a publisher that acquires its content from said sites. The first (indexing web content in a fairly indiscriminate manner) arguably doesn't require permission from the sources; the second (running a publication that sources other people's content extensively) presumably does. The fact that Google requires permission from news sites to index and feature their content in Google News, actually, supports the latter. And even without that, I think that a very reasonable case can be made for the second alternative (Google News as a publication).
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
google is removing France from Google Maps...
-pyrrho
if eveyone is so pissed off about this... slashdot em www.afp.com
Before I get totally flamed, let me start by saying Google News is my homepage, and its the first thing I look at every morning. I'm a huge fan.
That having been said...
IANAL but I honestly don't understand how Google News can possibly be legal.
Forgeting for a moment whether or not ad revenue is eventually generated by all those linked-to sites: The question of whether or not legal-permission is required to link to a sub-level of another site is a legal issue from way back when.
Back in 1997 (if memory serves) I remember it was ruled that paid content sites needed to seek permission before linking to the sublevel of another paid content site. Search engines were where the law got blurry. Google News! however doesn't seem like much of a search engine -- but I suppose one could make the argument that there is indeed search technology at work behind the scenes. From a user perspective however, Google News seems more like a content aggregator.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
at least google is being cool about it. let the selfish bastards (AFP) lose out on the viewership of the google crowd, fuckem.
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
Free press is not free!
The sun never sets on Google's empire.
If you had read the coverage of this issue, you would have known what AFP's first request to Google was. Hint: It was not to sue. I'll leave it as homework for you to look it up. Maybe you can Google for it :)
And nothing shows class like a sweeping generalization...
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Surely thats got to be easier than suing someone?
For the love of something, mod this troll down.
This is not about pictures published to the web by AFP.
This parent post is a troll.
And in the next Slashdot story Agence France Presse (AFP) goes bust, because nobody wants their stinking photos or news copy.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
Now France has basically stated that they don't wan thier "unbiased" journalism to be read by millions. In pushing thier anti-American agenda (and Google is an American company that they have scorned in the past), while the rest of the world keeps on spinning (and assimilating) without them, they continue to ensure thier obselecence as a global player. With this decision, they have volunteered to silence themselves.
Considering the quantity of propaganda spewed from France in general, anything that keeps the rest of the world from getting to see it can't be a bad thing.
Thanks Mr. Jacque "The Cock" Chirac for fostering a socialistic climate of blind hatred for anything non-french and foolisly isolating yourselves from the rest of the world with your dogmas. You will ensure that your country remains weak and unimportant until the inevitable collapse of your culture.
heres some news: No one gives a shit what the Agence France Presse (AFP) has to say anyway.
If they dont want me reading their news, so be it -- i honestly cant remember them ever breaking anything or reporting anything i cared about. Even if they did, odds are someone else would recycle it. So if they want less traffic, im happy to help.
ps. who cares what the French have to say anyway?
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
I don't see why AFP are being painted as the bad guys here.
They have a robots.txt that excludes their news articles, and yet Google is/was indexing them. Bad Google.
Ah, I was thinking it was British. I haven't kept up on the history of all the press agencies.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
They are the ones who think that AFP needs Google and/or believe that AFP is in the business of providing news to the general public.
"u still think they rely on google for anything? "
No. They still request people use an ISDN line to contact them.
Goodness. I wonder if they still use Telex and Minitel?
And people wonder why the french are universally mocked. The answer: Because they seem to have cornered the market on stupidity.
" that Google sees that AFP serious, Google is doing the right thing and taking down the content"
No, now that Google realizes that AFP are being jerks, they're punishing them by removing any links to AFP content.
Here's something important, because you don't get it (must be french): THAT CONTENT DOESN'T RESIDE ON AFP'S SITE. THEREFORE, GOOGLE IS PUNISHING ANYONE WHO DOES BUSINESS WITH THE AFP.
Re-read that until you get why Google is doing a cool little FU to AFP.
For me to hate the french.
Bunch of frog speaking, frog eating, white-flag waving pussies.
Oh yeah... and their cute Maginot Line didn't work either. Their biggest feat... was also their biggest failure.
And for all you other uneducated morons... look it up, you might learn something finally.
"Google removing their content shows that they know they would loose in a lawsuit"
No, it most likely shows that Google doesn't think AFP adds that much value to the google index.
But more importantly, this is effectively blackballing any newspaper that uses AFP content.
You don't understand this yet, but since you have so much time to write irrelevant nonsense here, I'll let you take some of that less-than-valuable time and think about why this will ultimately damage AFP's business.
As to an index "warezing" sites, that's ridiculous. But you don't get why, and again, I'll let the truth sink in over the next few months.
You don't understand how google just punished AFP. AFP probably is slowly getting it this morning, but too late.
The first thing I'd do is point out to the world that the Internet is a web.
The second thing I'd do is point out that if you don't want your information linked on the web, simply don't put it on the web.
The last thing I'd do is wipe France clean off the earth. But that goes without saying.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Call me troll if you wish, but even being an experienced /. reader, I can't believe the number of clueless fucktards who don't understand what this story is about.
This has nothing to do with Google indexing AFP's site. It has to do with Google indexing content that AFP has sold to news sites. By making this content available in Google News, Google has deflated the value of that content for AFP's customers.
AFP is within their rights to request that Google stop doing this. However, Google is in a difficult spot. How do they recognize AFP content on third party sites which allow (and probably encourage) Google to index? It seems to me that AFP needs to require their customers to not allow indexing of AFP's material. Appropriate entries in a robots.txt should resolve the issue.
Having said all that, let me say that I have no hope whatsoever that any of you clueless fucktards will understand the issues even now.
Anyone else notice that there are no Associated Press stories on news.google.com either? There were AP stories in the first days of news.google.com, but they disappeared within the first week...
News agencies spend a lot of money to produce the news, which they sell to their customers (or members in the case of the AP). There are specific contracts with all of them about when their information can be republished.
Although there are no ads now, google could easily add some in the future, and make money off something they never paid for.
Also, although it is good for us, it takes the online reader to google, and not to the individual newspaper site. Newspapers don't make money off their news; they make it off their ads. By not even looking at their front page unless there is a story that google users like, it takes away business. And in the case of AFP and AP (and even Reuters), because the same story is published on hundreds of websites, whichever website google chooses to list wins, and the remaining websites which published that page lose.
News agencies are simply looking out for their hard-earned dollar. And freedom of information aside... someone has to pay for the news to be covered... without news agencies, their would be a very small amount of world/national content on TV or in a newspaper.
Yes, after google purchased the rights to view all of AFP's news stories and signed the NDA to not further redistribute them....
Errr... no NDA?
Ummm... no purchase?
Oh, that's right! They just loaded their web pages like anyone else in the world could do. Maybe if the French wanted to avoid just anyone reading their stories they might want to -- you know -- require subscriptions to access them?
Whine and cheese...
When google requested the various columns and images from the news site, did google agree to any type of non-redistribution of materials?
I'd imagine that google's bot simply asked the news site's webserver for the information via http requests; and the webserver handed out the goods with no conditions.
Enjoy
http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id= 3313
How ever will I survive without franco-centric views on world news?
The horror...
AFP: Being on the front page of one the most popular websites in the world is bad for us. We estimate that it has caused us $17.5 million!
Person 1: How has it done that!?
AFP: All those hits on our website caused us to go over our bandwidth limit!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Most people here would be pretty happy if Google all of the sudden started to abuse it's #1 status by "banning" people from their lists whenever they wanted to.
Most argumentation here is based on "Google should teach them a lesson" and "If you're banned from Google, you don't exist anymore".
Brings some real interesting questions about average-Slashdotter's position regarding monopolies and power abuse.
"If we like you and you're abusing those nasty evil big corporations, we'll support your actions". Some geeks here look more brainwashed than the average Scientology freak.
Image Microsoft runs and owns the biggest and best search engine on the 'net. And they have a news service. EVERYBODY uses their web news service. A few companies decide that they don't LIKE Microsoft indexing and repeat their news, so they sue Microsoft to have their pages removed. Microsoft says, "Fine, have it your way," and dumps all their content from all their news and search indices.
You jerks would be here in screaming your bloody heads off over the unethical bullying market tactics of Microsoft and championing the causes of these poor news organizations who are being coerced by Microsoft by the force of their market share into giving them free access to their news.
You can replace "Google" with "Microsoft" in almost any story like this and watch all of Slashdot do a complete 180 on the story. You're ripping this agency because they're fighting against one of Slashdot's sacred cows.
... make a clean break, and pull all AFP (and preferably AFP-sourced articles) out of the general search as well as the news site.
Black hole those bitches.
Dammit! Learn to use apostrophes, people! "Photos" is just a plural and needs no apostrophe. Here's a funny cartoon about it to make you feel dumb:
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
I could ignore it if it wasn't on the main page of Slashdot.
When US companies do their business in Europe, they must comply with European law, just as European companies who sell to US customers must comply with US law. The Yahoo case makes a good example; Yahoo.fr clearly broke French law which has been around for 50 years; the ruling of the French court is correct according to French law.
What would US citizens think if a Japanese company sold Japanese child porn to US customers, then lost before a US court, and then "appealed" that decision at a Tokyo court which would decide that the Japanese company may continue to ship child porn to US customers?
How do you figure?
I mean, Google News has a bunch of links and a bunch of pictures. The two are not actually related, though -- that is, the picture next to the story is from one of the articles in that category but not necessarily from the one excerpted. Really, go check it out.
Google indexes both images and small snippets of the stories, and displays them automagically together on the Google News frontpage. Not indexing AFP photos will only mean that AFP photos won't be on the front page, not that the news source that purchase AFP material won't be indexed. Do you see the difference?
Lots of articles don't have images, and yet they still get indexed. Do you see how this works? The photos are irrelevant.
Quoting a snippet is certainly fair use, but displaying a photo on your site that other people had to pay to use probably isn't.
Ergo, the sites that buy AFP content still get indexed, but AFP pictures don't end up on Google News. And obviously, Google knows full well which pics are AFP pics -- they actually automagically cut out the copyright notice on those picture before they display them. Seems like they were asking for it.
Their often one sided view of issues in the middle-east has garnered them a great following in said area amongst people who support the destruction of "infidels" and would love to enforce Dhimmitude
Read this article for a good overvue of why this is no big loss.
Good Riddance to AFP!
Bande de cons, allez vous faire encule.
A quick check of google news shows that they excerpt roughly the first 200-240 bytes of each story, and you have to follow the link to see the rest of the story.
So how could this not be fair use? I'd think that a judge would just laugh and toss it out with a summary judgement. Why didn't the judge do this?
Is it now illegal to tell someone a few words about a story and then tell them where they can read the story?
If so, is every slashdot summary now a potential violation?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I suppose RSS syndication is out of the question, too.
"AFP. Firmly Stuck in the 20th Century. Since 2005."
"The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program and no Frenchmen."
Euhmz.. , excusez le mot, but RTFA! .. They contacted Google way before they decided to sue them. So they did your options in in the order you presented them ..
Ban France off the Internets. It's the only way to be sure.
I am sad to hear you are suing Google for including your news articles in their free Google News web search service. I use Google News to locate the best and most accurate reporting. If your stories aren't here, I won't see them any other way. I regret this as I consider AFP to be one of the very best and more reliable news services. Please reconsider your decision. News is news......
Only boring people are ever bored.
...doing anything to reduce the availability of the news would draw protest from the readers. Anything from raising the subscription rates to outright censorship...they all have the same effect of muzzeling the reporter and putting blinders on the public. But in France? Au contraire! they have a very different view of the matter of course.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Block AFP at the router you don't want to get sued and you don't want your company to get sued.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Why they don't edit robots.txt?