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Google in Trouble for Suggesting Illegal Software
JehCt writes "Google is being sued over the 'suggest' feature built into its latest toolbar. InfoWorld reports: 'ServersCheck, a small company that makes network monitoring software,' is complaining that, 'If ServersCheck is entered, Google generates suggested search terms such as serverscheck crack, serverscheck pro crack and serverscheck keygen which lead to pirated software.' In an apparent public relations blunder, Google claimed to have no way of filtering suggestions. However, Google can and does filter because the toolbar won't provide suggestions for keywords like 'porn'."
The exhaustive results of google search is one thing, but making suggestions to illegal activity in the toolbar is taking it a bit over the line.
Funnypics
They start censoring individual keywords there is going to be no quality control, since obviously they can't work with every keyword that entered on google or in the toolbar.
If there is an automated way, what is there to prove that a competitor is not doing it?
-nick
...that more people are interested in pirated copies of their software than their actual brand? I'm far from an expert at the workings of search engine toolbars (hate 'em), but doesn't that particular function bring up the most popular searches for that keyword?
Telling Google to filter those selections is rediculous! If the company doesn't like people supplying cracks/serials then go after the offender... not Google just because they no they exist. I'm tired of all this crap. Pretty soon the MPAA and RIAA will go after Google because they index illegal mp3 and movies. What the hell is wrong with this world?
http://religiousfreaks.com/Is that anyone can sue anybody for anything, even if it's later:
a. tossed out of court;
b. found totally without cause; or
c. settled because the group/person being sued doesn't have enough legal firepower or deep pockets to fight the case.
I predict that Google, who have just a teeny bit of money, isn't too worried about this one.
Now, if it were say a Linux distro being sued by say a Unix license owner who claimed they had stolen their code, that's another animal, but that's because most distros don't have deep pockets or lawyers to throw on fires for no good reason.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why would anyone even use such a toolbar?
Back in the 2600 case over the DeCSS source code the courts said that it was effectively illegal to link to something illegal.
Since then I've been wondering when the major search engines were going to be sued because they link to illegal content such as child porn and pirated software.
It'll be interesting to see how this pans out and if Google does lose you can surly expect to see others joining in against them and others due to the precedent it sets.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
...when Google just brought to their attention that certain websites were pirating their software and offered to list each of those sites for them?
I don't like installing toolbars, but you can dink around with the suggest feature here
Man, you really need that seminar!
" Google Results: 1 - 10 of about 6,360,000 for "MS Cracks" "
Nothing to see here, please move along now.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
From the Google Suggest FAQ, "Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers." Perhaps they have turned off suggestions for a few obvious terms (porn, etc), but I doubt they are actually filtering the searches used to rank the refinements - this would be quite difficult to do in general. Expecting google to weed through all of the searches that have been made in order to find what some might consider to be illegal would be absurd.
They should stop filtering on the word "porn"
.. Google has had more lawsuits and legal complaints against it ever since it went public ?
In this particular instance, I'm not saying the plaintiff is in the wrong, (they sound fairly reasonable enough), but now that Google is no longer just a "stone", people from all over are looking to get blood, whereas before, it seemed that Google could do no wrong.
No doubt part of that is due to Google's business model expansion, but the legal troubles don't seem commensurate with their growth.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I think the original poster might be wrong about Google's ability to filter. There's a difference blocking suggestions for the keyword "porn" and blocking only the "illegal" suggestions for "ServersCheck". Going by the logic in the post, Google could probably only easily block *all* sugggestions for "ServersCheck", not just the illegal ones. I'm pretty sure the software company wouldn't like that option...
I wonder why this article is not showing up as part my /. RSS feed on my Google Personalized Homepage...filtered out maybe?
He's trying to get Google to change the Suggest results. Van Laere uses Google's tool for analyzing Web traffic and found that about 93 percent of ServerCheck's customers come to their Web site by way of the popular search engine.
"We don't have any problems with the fact that in Google you can find illegal copies of our software," Van Laere said. "There are people who will never buy the product at the end of the day.
So they really weren't harmed, they just want some google cash! I noticed they refiled the suit. Did the first one get thrown out? Why is litigation always the first thing companies do? It seems they can't try just working out their differences by communication. If 93 percent of your customers are coming by way of google, do they really want to have the term servercheck blocked? They can block porn because it's an input term, not an output suggestion. See the difference?
dataset too large to proccess. Why always assume malice? :)
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Interesting, they took the FAQ offline http://labs.google.com/intl/en/suggestfaq.html Also - there are plenty of adult things you can bring up in suggest, just very very basic words like "porn" are blocked.
My name is coaxeus, and I approve this message. In fact, I think it is awesome.
With your software's name are "crack" and "keygen", you *might* need to take a good long look at your licensing and pricing model.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
But yes this is another story of sue happy america. Got to love the US of A. Especially the fact that it is an ocean away.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What ServersCheck is asking Googles is to stop suggesting that people search for Serverscheck crack, when they were possibly trying to just search for ServersCheck.
Now that I've stated teh obvious, this seems a perfectly fair thing to ask, both legally and ethically, even considering free speech, and the fact that the present model is ultimately based on the actual results/user request - which is a really nice way incidentally.
Google Suggest, even if GOOG would probably want to potray it as more of a user trend analysis tool, seems to be on shaky ground, as it seems intuitive to think of it more of a guidance system based on the value it actually provides.
Wouldn't Google still be considered a common carrier? They didn't produce the stuff, why would they filter it.
.. if a common carrier started to filter out results that they thought were unfavorable, then they'd have to filter ALL illegal content, because then they become a delivery source.
IIRC
So why is Google filtering the stuff?
Or would they not be common carrier?
= Grow a brain...
Aggregated information is just that: information. It is not owned or copyrighted by anyone. The judge should simply rule that Google is not the one to sue, because they do not own the fact that 1000 people searched for this result.
" With your software's name are "crack" and "keygen", you *might* need to take a good long look at your licensing and pricing model."
:)
Uh oh, careful there, in today's climate, you might get sued for suggesting such evil information.
The Digital Sorceress
It's called google suggest, not google you must do what the results tell you to do or you will die!
If they do manage to outlaw bringing up search results with words like "crack," won't the cracker scene just come up with some other lingo? I could write something that does the same thing and call it a "Floyd" instead of a "crack," and if that catches on you'll get just as many illicit search results for "ServersCheck Floyd." And then what, will they sue over searches for "Floyd?"
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Their pricing doesn't seem to be particularly out of line. If you find their software useful, it's certainly reasonable.
This guy's the limit!
Gah! Should've linked to their full product listing.
This guy's the limit!
$300 for a professional license, and no academic level in the licensing? I'd say that's enough to inspire piracy- and also enough to lose sells to competitors who make sure high school and college students graduate with expertise on their software.
They need something for the schools, and for the under-5 machine-home network if they truly don't want their software pirated (though I'd be more worried about losing sales to competitors in their case).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
oh, I thought we were talking about the United States of Armenia. That USA.
so, I suppose my analogies about a 375 kg orange gorilla are totally useless in understanding what it's like fending off an 800 pound blue gorilla, right?
how much you want to bet the court eventually tosses this, after sufficient lawyers are thrown at the problem by Google? I've got no irons in the fire on this, but I predict that's what will end up happening.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This "problem" is not limited to ServersCheck. A Google 'Suggest' search for just about any popular software package will turn up entries that include the words "crack", "serial" or "keygen".
Just for kicks I tried the following queries:
Photoshop
Paintshop
Autocad 2005
3d Studio Max
Fruity Loops
Windows 2000 Pro
Office 2003
Soundforge
*All* of them resulted in illicit entries appearing in the suggestions box.
You don't see France suing over this!
I don't understand why this would be illegal. Immoral maybe, and a definite bug, but illegal? Google could just as easily dump serverscheck out of its index. There's nothing illegal about that. Why do they legally have to return results favorable to serverscheck?
If you're building a home network that needs enterprise-grade monitoring then you probably have the skills to create a monitoring system yourself.
This guy's the limit!
Thank so much. I was wondering why google at one point was trying to complete my search terms for me. It was driving me crazy because the number one search term at that time for Mythbusters was concerning their sexuality.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
We know that Spammer uses huge botnets of sometimes 100K machines in it. Also you can "rent" some botnet for illegal activity.
So it would be theorically possible that one of your concurrent launches a big "google suggest defacement attack" by doing tons of searches in google that leads google to suggest, for example, "sucks" or "morons" when your company names is entered ?
Well I suppose any 'feedback' technology can be abused those days and it is only a question of who is willing to pay more than what is possible.
.. comes great responsibility!
Either that or you have teenagers, or are running a Personal Telco node, or are simply trying to learn enough to get that job doing enterprise level monitoring... I can think of large numbers of other reasons for wanting this level of monitoring on a personal network.
And that last one is the guy you WANT to learn your software, and should be providing a $23 CD to with a license to monitor under 5 nodes. If he gets used to using it on his home network, he'll come to you for the $1500 license when he gets hired.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Hey, thanks to the media, I now know some illegal things to search for!
Any other suggestions?
-- Boycott Shell
Problem is when someone asks for the query "cd key". CD and Key are different keywords, it's the COMBINATION that makes them dangerous.
What this complaint is suggesting is that Google algorithm has an AI to detect illegal searches. AFAIK, it doesn't. And even if it did, it would be a serious threat to freedom of speech. Just block the combination of words "sony" and "rootkit". See?
for those of you who didn't RTFA, the suit was filed in Belgium. Unless Bush has invaded them recently, I'm pretty sure US law doesn't apply there...
I must say though, if we're going to get serious about monitoring the content on the internet (not saying we should...); this needs to be handled as international law because it's just retarded to do this on a country by country basis...
> What the hell is wrong with this world?
For one, the fact that you insist in putting an advertisement in every comment you make. I really wish slashdot had a "-1, Advertisement" mod for posts.
They should stop filtering on the word "porn"
While it would be nice to have an unfiltered and free system, any time you would search for any celebrity, you'd end up with 7,000 search suggestions that you wouldn't want your boss to see and none that you would want unless you actually wanted to see them and were specifically searching for them, in which case you don't need a suggestion to help you out.
"Crack", on the other hand, is a word that has both safe (crack of the bat, wisecrack, a crack reporter, etc.) and unsafe (software crack, crack cocaine) suggestions; since you can't just ban the word, you would have to filter out based on what the person might be looking for, which is presumably where Google's impossibility statement comes in.
Their hardware price list is in line with what I've seen for this stuff- their software price list is what leaves something to be desired (and after all, who's going to pirate the hardware at those prices anyway? You'd spend more on the components to solder together than the actual cost of buying it prebuilt). Software though is easier to copy- and while their prices are in line with competitors, they need an expanded licensing scheme to take into account academic and hobbyist users. I realize most people think "we don't want those as customers anyway"- but chances are this is where 90% of your piracy is, and also it's good advertising to get into new markets later on.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I feel they have no reason to complain. People searching for pirated software generally know how to find it, and don't need Google Suggest. People not searching to pirate software won't suddenly get that desire because it was suggested by Google Suggest. In fact, ServersCheck could use this to their advantage. By using Google Suggest, it is now easier for them to find the bad guys that are pirating their software.
Then it's time to find another search engine. Otherwise I may as well use google.cn
And who needs the damn toolbar? The browser already has one. Google's, Yahoo's, myweb's, hotbar's toolbars are all the same to me. They are there to serve ads, but add nothing that the browser doesn't already have. The only good thing about them are the job opportunities provided to me by the need to remove them from the customer's computer. So...uh...thanks guys, for keeping me in fat city.
What?
Legitimacy is determined by whether it's ethical and moral, not whether it's legal!
Then it'd be called "ethicitimacy" or "moritimacy", not "legitimacy".
If you're using a laptop, then buy a so-called "casual" game, which is 1. more likely not to need the CD in the drive and 2. less likely to peg your laptop's CPU and fan at 100%. First-person shooters and real-time sims aren't likely to be very playable on a touchpad anyway.
So is google supposed to filter out the word "crack" from "serverscheck" searches? What happens if I want to (innocently) search for "crack cocaine" or "cracked windsheild". Crack is a lot more ambiguous than porn. You know porn when you see it, but I'm not sure I could tell the difference between cocaine and crack cocaine without further inspection. How long before we can no longer google Democracy OR Porn... Then What?
Is the next version of the DMCA upon us? Why does everyone supopse that companies must babysit their products.
It's not Google's problem is their product can be used in a malice situation. Same thing would apply for almost anything. You could stab a person with a pencil, then blame the pencil for it.
I think this is pathetic. It's the companie's problem if they don't have good enough piracy protection. Don't go after the search companies!
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
However, Google can and does filter because the toolbar won't provide suggestions for keywords like 'porn'
Perhaps, but if you are more creative, you can get interesting suggestions for things like "dirty s" or "pus" or "nip". And, hey! Whaddya know... "p0rn" and "pr0n" each produce suggestions. =)
The fact that it might not be a good idea doesn't mean it's okay to make it illegal (which is the argument you're implicitly making)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
... filtering for every different piece of software would mean manually adding filters for hundreds, or thousands of topics. It's ludicrous.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
...and the first site listed is quite offensive (to me), therefore, I would suggest that if you know what to key in, you can find anything you are looking for with this tool.
The 2600 decision was unconstitutional on the face of it. The first amendment lets a newspaper tell citizens where a red light district is without fear of being hauled up on pandering charges. The last 25 years have seen our federal courts loaded with pro-business, defacto right wing judges who have markedly ruled against the consumer and for more invasive corporate power.
Google shouldn't have to filter a damned thing.
Software to crack your own property is morally proper, no matter what laws the rich bastards have purchased. The "license to use, but you don't own this disk or the software" idea is manure. You buy it, you own it. That's how physical transactions work. An author of a book doesn't get to tell you how to read, store, or dispose of the book after you purchase it. Well, right now he can't. Wait a couple of years.
This is how people lose faith in the law. Make enough stupid, vicious laws to make powerful people happy, and soon no one respects the law, since they KNOW it's a scam to make powerful wealthy people happy.
I'm starting to see the end of the internet as we've known it. It's turning into corporate-controlled 21st century TV, complete with vice squads and corporate private cops busting people.
Time to start building encrypted darknet transmission systems, kids. The dark times are starting.
Will they also have to filter :crax [r4x0rz keygenerator keybusta serialz....?
Is Google responsible for the legality of every piece of data that they index? Clearly, the answer to this has to be no. Otherwise, Google would have to shut down because they wouldn't be able to do a thorough legal review of everything in their database. While I do think they have some responsibility (like deleting direct links to illegal software when someone points the issue out), we have to be careful how we word this to avoid making search engines liable for the legality of all content. I think the solution is that if notified that something is illegal, there should be a process by which that piece of data is removed from the index. Seach engines shouldn't be required to determine the validity of the claims either. This would also be a big burden because many claims could turn out to be bogus.
No Sigs!
The alternatives algorithm simply notices that the query "serverwhatever crack" is presented significantly more often than the query "serverwhatever"---which seems plausible. I suspect that if the query "porn" appeared ten times less frequently than "gay porn," the algorithm would likewise suggest "gay porn" as an alternative query.
Anyway, proprietary software makes me giggle. Or rather it would if I were a schoolgirl.
So, if I am Google and get succesfully sued for this, I am so copying Amazon and other storefronts who have the "Others who typed this search were also interested in these terms" result set on the side. This is really the doing of the masses that use Google and shouldn't be changed in my opinion. If there is so much info out there about '[software co] + crack' then I agreee with aother posters who said it is [software co]'s problem. I think I would find the suggestions useful sometimes.
Page 1 of 1,548 results containing "MS Cracks" (0.12 seconds)
Web Results
Page 1 of 1,673,265 results containing MS Cracks (0.10 seconds)
That's why we use Google :)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This shouldn't be thought of as ServerCheck and Cracks, but about term-a as related to term-b by algorithmic popularity (how often term-b has been searched for in the past with term-a, how often term-a and term-b occur "together" on pages in the db, etc). All Google Suggest does is try to make a prediction based on these kinds of popularity factors. Use of the term "suggest" as a marketing tool doesn't change the fact that this isn't a suggestion in the typical sense and thus legislation to make Google stop showing related terms is ridiculous.
Personally, I wish google suggest did more, like pop up a faceted classification tree of relationships as one typed, but I can see why it doesn't do that...
Why doesn't the company worry about making it so more people want to purchase their product than crack it? There's probably a proponderance of cracks for this product because there's a perceived need for it. Work on your customer relations rather than trying to remove results from a search engine, and listen to what your customers are saying. The rest will take care of itself.
Suggesting to people that they use illegal or inappropriate products or whatever is an irresponsible thing to do unless there's a capable person making the judgement.
Google could filter things, but not everything - because the bad guys put up new hosts so fast, but the bottom line is that if they cannot make the service work properly then they should not provide it at all.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It's also worthwhile noting that serials, keygens, and cracks are not themselves illegal, since a person may have legimately acquired the software but perhaps either misplaced the serial # or for some other reason is not predisposed towards using the software's normal facilities for unlocking it.
Now that said, I'm fully aware that the primary use for such cracks are in the domain of software piracy, but again... that's not really google's fault, is it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Totally agree with you
1) Input 'PORN' doesn't get in the Suggest Algo.
2) The suggest database doesn't contain the word 'PORN'
Hence no matter what u do u cannot get porn as an output term.
Yes go ahead click the link. Its kosher
2020 AD.
A kid looks in wonder while we greybeards say,
"Once upon a time, the internet was FREE and de-centralized.
We could say anything we wanted and exchange ideas freely.. and it was NOT like TV at all. ".
And the kid would look with Awe... and wonder, "NO WAY".
-aJester
Google should just make it so a search for ServersCheck returns nothing. What a bunch of assholes.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
This company's going to get shot down if they face Google in court. Their example of filtering is the opposite of what they're complaining about. They give an example of Google not offering suggestions for "sex", which means Google is filtering the input keywords. They then complain that Google doesn't exclude "servercheck keygen" from the result set for "servercheck", which would involve filtering the output set. Google's response will be, quite properly, "Yes, we can look at keywords and not offer any suggestions for a certain set of keywords. But that's not what you're asking. You're asking for us to filter the set of suggestions returned for potentially any set of keywords and remove certain suggestions but not others. And what criteria do we use to decide what's legitimate? "keygen" is entirely legitimate as a keyword for software to let authors generate license keys to issue to buyers of their own software, after all.".
Scientology not wanting any critic sites suggested.
RIAA not wanting any alternative music/non-big 4 music sites suggested.
It would never end, and we end users are all poorer when censorship happens.
And don't think for a moment this company won't ask to have other download sites removed the moment it is proved it's possible. Google's defence has to be that it's not possible in an automated system.
Lastly, filter out crack and it will simply become cr@ck. You get the idea.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
People are going to find cracks for the software they want whether Google is "helping" them or not.
I agree with the other people who posted here. Do a better job with your company, and people will not want to cheat you out of your software.
"In a world that exists without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
I'd say the company should get some big websites to talk about there company and cracks/keygens and link to them. That way they can easely get the first place for those keywords. :-)
... but I doubt that's going to stop a judge from forcing Google to do so never the less.
On another note, I do agree with them. When I go to Google and type in there company name Google tells me that I don't really want them but that I instead want to get cracks for them. As a programmer I also see that Google has little option to stop this apart from blocking words like cracks, keygen,
My freeware games
I guess it's a good thing fps's aren't the only genre you can play on a laptop then.
Not only to protect the companies, but to protect their customers. Those serial, wares and keygen sites are loaded with malware. If someone looks for 'cracks' and 'serials', chances are they know what they're getting into. But for random Joe User looking for Photoshop, they may not, and Google shouldn't be suggesting those sites to them. The same goes for porn sites.
It's nice to see a young company pulling itself up by the bootstraps and striving to become the next SCO.
...next, they'll need to claim that Nagios stole some of their code.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
Here we have a classic example of not understanding how things work. It is relatively easy to prevent searches for specific items such as "porn", "pussy", etc. One simply provides a list of terms in the program that result in no search being performed. Here is some psuedo-code.
@banned_words="porn","pussy","dick";
foreach word in @banned_words {
if ( @search_terms=~m/$word/ ) {
$naughty=1;
break;
}
}
return 1 if ($naughty);
do_search(@search_terms);
As one can see, it is a very simple operation which, as other have pointed out, is easily circumvented.
Filtering the results is a much trickier proposition because there is context involved.
The same code applied to results would prevent results containing "pussy cat" from appearing in a search for "cat". It would also prevent any referrence to someone named "Dick" from appearing in, say, a search of Vice Presidents or actors.
In the case of the results listed ("serverscheck crack", "serverscheck pro crack", and "serverscheck keygen")trying to filter "crack" and or keygen would result in a large number of valid sights being block for OTHER searches. Imagine the results from search on ssh-keygen if one filters "keygen" out of the results.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Google can and does have the ability to filter out search terms like "britney spears naked" and other offensive terms like that. And in response to all of the people who say stuff like "crack" has plenty of legitimate uses, i would argue that the word "naked" and/or "nude" has just as many legitimate uses, and google suggest filters them out.
Anyways, i completely agree with what they are saying... I have no problem with google trying to use google to search for illegal software, but when they are trying to search for legal software, and google suggests to search for illegal software, that is a problem... IMO, google should be able to filter it out the same way they do for pornographic results from the google suggest bar.
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
If you are looking for information on crack cocaine that would be legitimate, and what if you wanted an encryption keygen?
what sig?
The software company is just going to have to make their software harder to crack. Research on anything can yield an opportunity to do something that's in violation of somebody's idea of a copyright violation. Google is just giving search results. Google doesn't promote any of them except the sponsored ones you see on top.
(||) Nehmo (||)
yay for f'ing up the link in my post! I rock!
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
Those guys should actually think about the reason cracks of their software have more rating than their software, it is of course the result of bad... ... well bad everything , bad management, bad marketting, bad prizing.
The happy outcome is that google is getting sued perhaps because google has the money, instead, sueing the guys that make the cracks or distribute them would be harder and more difficult to get benefits from
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Google should remove "ServersCheck" from their index; that will remove all illegal content related to that business. Of course, it will also remove 90% of the bussiness's traffic, but, hey, they want to be safe, and now they are safe.
I foresee a slashdot effect drastically increasing the usage of ServersCheck.
I don't think many of the future installs will be legal.
I think google is the wrong adress to file a lawsuit against... it just shows you, which results were most often visited/searched in connection with this keyword...
;)
this gives me an idea... I'll patend terminating turing machines... and if google has a link to a site containing a turing machine in their search result, they must find out if it ever terminates and filter it out if it does or they infringe the patent...
maybe I'd use this patent only against msn
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
to disallow seaerching for their product. The toolbar doesn't allow searching or the word 'porn' but i doubt it filters out results with the word porn in it.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Google did their part to stop "piracy" by searching out and presenting criminal activity. They should be thanked, not sued.
Yes, that is spin, but it is dramatically more accurate than "Google suggesting illegal software".
My gosh, what the hell is wrong with people? So I suppose if i type my name in google and someone else comes up I can sue too? Or if results for a site featuring a "gay monkey f***er?" Come on, it's not like Google is intentionally putting anything on there "site" it's a fricken search engine people!!! Grow up. Man, this is one thing that pisses me off, google has money so everyone wants a piece of free pie.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. ~Albert Einstein
> If their code is smart enough to know a keyword "ServersCheck" is listed on webpages with the other keywords
> "ServersCheck crack", "ServersCheck keygen" or "ServersCheck pro crack" they should be able to put a filter in for it
There is no way Google has keyword rules like that. It is impractical for the size of their dataset. A much more likely method for making suggestions is to find other keywords a particular word appears with on the same page, sort the results by number, and display the top three or so. This sounds exactly like the sort of stuff their search engine already does, and because of that is likely require very little code to implement.
Now, what's happening with ServersCheck is that their software is really pricey -- $1500/copy, ok for corporate giants, but no good to anyone else; especially considering how very little it does. So, naturally, everyone just pirates it instead, and as a result, the cracks and keygens show up on thousands of those trash sites where you can play find-the-download-link forever in a sea of porn and ads. These sites are so numerous that "ServersCheck crack" probably has a higher correlation than any other terms related to the company and as such show up first on the suggestions list.
"Fixing" this is not possible in general; there is no way to tell if a particular keyword is illegal somewhere just by looking at it. It is possible to add a secondary filter on the suggestions list on which keyword pairs would be placed by request. Depending on how extensible the search engine itself is, this may be easy or hard, but is definitely a bit of extra work.
I first saw this as a WoW-based animation and was very impressed. Then I discovered that they lifted the audio from Avenue Q, a Broadway musical. You can see original The Internet is for Porn on the Avenue Q site.
You've mostly all missed whats going on here. If said company put X amount cash into advertising they would reach Z amount of people. Going after Google will cost them less per number of people they are now reaching, they might win they might not win. The point is they are now a name known to so many people for far far less than what would of cost them before.
Simple as that.
Google can just filter all hits that involve the term "ServersCheck."
For another example: here
"Lastly, filter out crack and it will simply become cr@ck. You get the idea."
Hey, whaddya know, google suggest filters the word 'porn' but not 'pr0n'.
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&q=pr0n
First of all, I take it from the name "ServersCheck" that this piece of software is a remote administration tool. Since very few competent admins would rely on a cracked piece of software to monitor their equipment, it's got to be warez kiddies doing the cracking (and probably not even using the software). You know, 0-day oneupsmanship.
Now, do you see the inherent flaw in letting warez kiddies dictate the pricing structure of your product?
Photoshop must be the most widely cracked software out there, second only to Windows XP (just a guess). It's not terribly expensive - $700 or so, right? - and there are both low-cost and free alternatives (Photoshop Elements, the Gimp, etc.). Does that stop anyone from cracking Photoshop CS? Nope.
Supply and demand dictate the price of your product. ServersCheck and Photoshop CS are not high-demand mass-market consumer products. They're priced accordingly. And since they're used by professionals, there's a return on the investment. Theoretically, ServersCheck will maximize your uptime. My legit copy of Photoshop CS has allowed me to generate thousands of dollars of income for my company (not that I couldn't have done that with the Gimp, but I've been using Photoshop since version 2.51 and I'm pretty set in my ways).
While supply and demand controls pricing, you hope that your product sells enough to recoup your investment in development, distribution, and marketing, along with covering your recurring expenses and perhaps a bit of profit on top of that. If not, you cut expenses. Adobe is a publicly traded company; while cutting the price of Photoshop CS2 might push a few more units out the door, that would come at the expense of profits and perhaps result in a net loss. Cue the shareholder revolt in 3...2...1...
Finally, the whole warez culture is not about being able to use software that you can't afford. It's all about hoarding, the digital equivalent of those ladies who live with 50 cats. It's irrational. Why you would want to hitch the pricing of your product to that sort of thing is even crazier.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I can see why "keygen" is tough, because I can't think of many legitimate uses for either that, or warez or something...
Well, for one thing, this Slashdot story would be filtered, as would your comment, as would mine.
Yup, that's not inappropriate censorship, not at all!
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Its not a matter of who did wrong, its a matter of where all the good targets are.
Afghanistan had little to blow up to make a show of "doing something", and little to geopolitical or economic to gain from victory aside from, you know, actually dealing with al-Qaeda. So after making a show of going after al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the "war on terror" became about Iraq.
Similarly, this company went after Google because the pirate sites might be the real wrongdoers against whom they could make an airtight case, but there are no "good targets" (i.e., deep pocket defendants) there. Suing them doesn't get you much of anything but a moral victory. Even getting Google to settle to make you stop annoying them and avoiding the risk of an adverse ruling at trial is worth a lot more.
internet is for porn
According to their version comparision chart, they offer a freeware version for non-commercial use, which has most of the features of the pro version.
Go on, blame the victim.
Whether their pricing is reasonable or not is completely irrelevant. They can charge whatever they want, since it's their software. The question is whether it is legal for Google to recommend pirated software.
But I'm sure you understand this. You're just a troll, like 98% of all Slashbots in this thread.
Here's the afore-mentioned World of Warcraft - The Internet is for porn video.
Courtesy of Google Video.
--Jimmy
The 2600 decision was unconstitutional on the face of it. The first amendment lets a newspaper tell citizens where a red light district is without fear of being hauled up on pandering charges.
:)
Hyperlinks take you somewhere automatically, while newspaper texts make you go somewhere yourself; that was the reasoning IIRC. (And as a result of that, plain text URLs are acceptable no matter what they're for, only hyperlinks cause any legal problems.)
Of course, this is from memory, so if my memory's bad, so is this post.
"Do not buy this product."
Great Discussion but I would not blame right wing in this. We don't want anymore government interaction into anything much less our porn or cracks. This is some small company who found a law firm who would run with their outlandish claims probably on the basis they might get lucky and make more money in the lawsuit than their half ass company does. Very few things you can fault google with and on top of that list is the moral decisions in their design choices. You would have to catch the judge on a day with a pineapple up his ass for him to find against google.
"In an apparent public relations blunder, Google claimed to have no way of filtering suggestions. However,
Google can and does filter because the toolbar won't provide suggestions for keywords like 'porn'."
"Google has no way of filtering suggestions" means they have no way of filteringsearch results for a given search term
"the toolbar won't provide suggestions for keywords like 'porn'" is keyword filtering, which is an important difference
Can't we all just get along
Time to start building encrypted darknet transmission systems, kids. The dark times are starting.
Actually that time was 4-6 years ago. You're too late, although mabye if you find someone who's already started you can join onto them.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
They won't win, I can search for anything online, it's not the search engines job to censor me, no one should censor me - it's the search engines job to tell me the most popular topics related to my keywords. I'm guessing it's just a publicity stunt.
Company X: "We don't want our product mentioned in the same search results as 'cracks'! "
Nation X: "We don't want our nation mentioned in the same search results as 'democracy'! "
Religion X: "We don't want our religion mentioned in the same search results as 'evolution'! "
To paraphrase that great thinker, Yoda, "Once you start down the path of filtering, forever will it dominate your destiny."
Or was it "Start down path the filtering of once you, destiny dominate it forever your will." Something like that. But then he said a lot of stupid stuff when he was drunk.
My name is David and I'm mad! After seeing what Google had done to ServersCheck I decided to see what they had done to my name.
...
"D" - the results include dictionary, dog, and desperate housewife. Oh my gosh, they are evil. Just a "d" and they are already defining my wife as a bitch.
"Da" - the results include davids bridal, dating and da vinci code. Are they implying that I need to date and get married? Or are the alluding to the implication that Jesus married Mary Magdalene? Either way can't Google just stay out of my marriage and my religious beliefs.
"Dav" - David Letterman, David Beckham, David Bowie. Are they trying to play good cop/bad cop with me? Now they are associating me with celebrities. Can't they just let me be me?
"Davi" - Hmm, now they're getting the idea. One of the suggestions, finally, is just plain David, but they're still courting me with davids bridal and a slew of celebrities, one interesting addition this round is david and goliath. Are they advocating that I use violence against them? I know that the little guy won in that story!
"David" - Now you'd expect they'd settle down and just let me be me, but no we keep all the other celebs and gain David Hockney. Oh, well I guess there's worse things to be associated with than an aging Pop Artist.
Now lets see what happens if I start typing in failure
Everybody knows the best place to find cracks and keygens is http://astalavista.box.sk/ :-)
Try entering
george bush is a
and see what pops up
Yep, unfortunately it turns out that building a strongly anonymous and attack-resistant yet usable p2p network is *very hard* so it's taking a while. IMO the most promising darknet project is currently Freenet 0.7 (see background info on the wiki.)
It's still in alpha however so it doesn't provide the intended level of anonymity or usability/performance yet. The goal for v1.0 is essentially for it to be safe enough for Chinese political dissidents and the like to use, who require rather stronger protection than Johnny McWarezTrader.
I love how this is being reported on Yahoo news.
The only problem I think is the name having "suggest" in it. If it was "Google Autocomplete" or "Google Previous Searches By Other People", there wouldn't be an issue.
This is a B.S. case in my opinion. It's as if someone asked you how to manufacture cocaine: simply answering the question is not the same as actually enabling that person to do it. The difference is that while the latter is indeed a crime, the former is protected under the 1st Amendment and therefore doesn't mean squat.
This space for rent!
"I'm Feeling Lucky"
m0nstr42.blogspot.com
No. I sell a program for just $11.95. The program has a high user satisfaction rate, is very popular in that field, and you even get 1 year of free support and free upgrades. $11.95 is certainly not overpriced for the sheer quality you get. Heck, there's even a free version of the program (which has less features and is less user friendly) available. Yet "crack", "torrent", "warez" etc. are very common search terms.
Google isn't a public service. When they say they "Can't filter", it's likely because it sends them down a slippery slope towards being unable to run a search engine. Ok, let's get rid of thte cracks. Now the warez. Now all the strange misspellings of those two. Well Jesus, thare are a billion pages on Google. To go through each one to make sure it's not illegal somehow would require trolling the entire internet.
In ths case, we're not talking about filtering individual web pages but suggested search terms. Sure, they could filter those too, technologically. However, we get the same problem; It's going to mean some poor sap going through each search term and trying find the offensive or illegal ones. They could try just filtering some terms, but then you get things like this, with them being called hypocrites.
In the end, between the additional logistics required to filter every time someone complains and the additional drain on computer resources to do so, it's a more acceptable business decision to get the whiney people to go away than to try to appease them.
It's been a long time.
Google also won't provide meaningful results to searches for midi files.
Are you servercheck? :-). Still, you might also look to non-financial incentives for piracy. Ease of installation, installation onto multiple machines on a home network, that sort of thing.
I'll also take this opportunity to directly acknowlege the message above yours- server check, unlike on their price list page, DOES offer a freeware version.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
...all pages containing the words "serverscheck" AND "crack".
And that includes...wait a minute...their own site!
Hmm - anyone see a google delisting coming? They may have to sue google (silly case like that, the link is somewhere)
"Are you servercheck? :-)"
No.
"Ease of installation"
Very easy. It's just a standard Windows next-next-next installer. It also involves entering a username and password (which the user got from me upon purchase; they can use it to download updates). The program can be used within a few minutes.
"installation onto multiple machines on a home network"
My license is very flexible. People can install it on an unlimited number of computers, as long as the license holder (or someone close to him, like a family member of a close friend) are the only users of the program.
Can you think of more reasons?
"Hyperlinks take you somewhere automatically"
:)
Thats odd, the Google results I get require that I "do something" like click on the hyperlink before I am transported to the destination of said link. I just have never encountered any type of redirection script issues with Google, thats what your implying right? Is this a Windows IE thing? Linux or OS/2 and Mozilla, Opera or Firefox don't act that way here.
"newspaper texts make you go somewhere yourself"
Really? I'd quit reading that newspaper, soon. Well.. I have read a few with some good "go to sleep" articles. How about it you got one with a "go to Cancun" article, I could handle that. Maybe one with a good "go to hell" article, not for me but I could think of a few places to send it, naw, naw, look these people are heading that way anyway, just a thought about accelerating the process.
Wabi-sabi
Matthew
Heh, yeah, I guess that was poorly worded. With hyperlinks, you normally either decide to see a site or you don't. With plain text URLs, whether in newspapers or on web sites, if you choose to go see that site, you have to repeat what you want to see yourself.
do you guys realize how many sysadmins are being exposed to this product because of this one /. post?
it's genius
It also involves entering a username and password (which the user got from me upon purchase; they can use it to download updates).
:-)
And thus, the need for a crack...especially if they lost the e-mail in the last hard drive meltdown. If they need it now at 1:00am and can't wait for you to wake up to check your records
My license is very flexible. People can install it on an unlimited number of computers, as long as the license holder (or someone close to him, like a family member of a close friend) are the only users of the program.
Which makes me wonder why you bother with the username/password at all?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"And thus, the need for a crack...especially if they lost the e-mail in the last hard drive meltdown."
That's not logical, considering these:
- People can change their password into something they can easily remember. It's no different from all other things that require a username and password.
- It's not mission critical enterprise software. It's consumer software. It wouldn't kill them to wait one day to redownload the program. Plus, it's an add-on for another product, which they have to download seperately. And that other product is at least 900 MB.
- Most people in my customer base use webmail accounts, such as Hotmail. They wouldn't lose the email in a hard drive crash. And of course, they can just write down the information on a piece of paper.
- 99.99999% of the crack users (or should I say, people who *want* to use the crack; there is no working crack at the moment) are people who don't want to pay, and have never used my program before (so they don't even know about the login-based download system). I've seen their posts on various forum topics. Their main motivation is not having to pay, not that it's too hard to enter a username/password. In fact, I've never heard of any crack users mentioning the login-based download system as the reason why they want a crack.
- The number of complaints about the login-based download system is at about 0.1% of the total number of customers. And most of the complaints are about download problems that are not specifically related to the system.
"Which makes me wonder why you bother with the username/password at all?"
To prevent piracy. It's part of the copy protection scheme. And it's a way to prevent people from abusing my bandwidth for pirated copies.
I found my girlfriend through Slashdot
/. journal. She has no friends, foes, fans or freaks.
Oh yeah, how is that possible when she has never made a single post on Slashdot?
She's never used her
Could she be imaginary?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
However, she is quite real if you trust her history on bookcrossing (although currently out at the farm and thus unable to post); she's of their top posters--I just don't have the time to sockpuppet to that extent. As to whether or not we are coupled, you could ask one of her livejournal friends.
/. account is her, though(I would have friended her account by now if she had one)
:D
I don't think that
Now that you mention it, I should get her to sign my GPG key
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.