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Google Relents, Publishes Belgian Ruling

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-is-afraid-of-belgium dept.

gambit3 writes "Google on Saturday published on its Belgian website a court order which forbids the Internet search engine to reproduce snippets of Belgian press on its news amalgamation service. The move constituted a u-turn as Google had said on Friday that it would not comply with the court order despite facing a fine of 500,000 euros ($640,900) daily if it did not publish the ruling." From the article: "Google said its service is lawful and drives traffic to newspaper sites because people need to click through to the original publisher to read the full story. It now displays stories from news agencies, foreign newspapers and Internet sites belonging to local television stations."

5 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. I'd take my ball and go home. by JakiChan · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    But I'm petty like that. I mean how much ad revenue can Belgium possibly add to their bottom line? Kill Google.be and news.google.be, block all known IP ranges from Belgium and throw them to a redirect that says "No google for you!"

    --
    "Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
    1. Re:I'd take my ball and go home. by HatchedEggs · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I have to laugh about this. The parent in this thread received a +0 for troll, and the response just after it that started off by saying that they agreed with it was marked as a +3 inciteful.

      Get it together mods, you guys usually do a horrible job, but now you're just out doing yourselves.

      I'll refrain from saying anything more obvious than that.

      --
      Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
    2. Re:I'd take my ball and go home. by frost22 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      pfft. economic hub - what nonsense. I am European, and let me tell you this - Belgium is a piece of dirt on a map, an asylum of megalomaniac province idiots, and basically known in Europe for pralinees, corruption and pedophilia.

      A few years ago the Belgian idiots tried to declare the world to be their colony by making lawas applying to the whole world - and trying to enforce them. Needless to mention that shit backfired ... a little :-)
      Some years before that Belgioum shocked the rest of Europe by finding a pedophile ring - abducting and murdering little girls - that was so imbued and anchored in high circles of Belgian societey that Belgian police for years tried to fully uncover it, ultimately unsuccessfully (a few small fish went to prison). Apparently, pedohiles in belgium are about as powerful and entrenched as the mafia in southern Italy.
      Aside of those Brussels is the main seat of the European Comission and an incredible fertile ground for absurd levels of corruption.

      But one has to remark that Belgian pralinees are excellent.

      If I were Google, I would just remove any reference to the newspapers that sued from all Google systems. All of them.

      --
      ...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.
  2. Re:Copyright is copyright by mattso · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Indexing would be fine and fair use. But that isn't what Google does. It copies wholesale and republishes what it copied (via it's cache feature). While the world+dog may think Google is a great and super useful tool, it doesn't change the fact that it is also is based on the assumption that they can do any damn thing they want with other people's content. But as always, free content is more important than protecting the content's owners rights to commercially exploit it, at least on Slashdot.

    Go Google. King of evil.

  3. China by Krommenaas · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If only Google would have made an equally strong stand when China ordered it to apply political censorship.