Google Accused of Benefitting From Piracy

Clant writes "Google has been accused of benefiting from certain piracy websites because of the Adsense program, according to reports. Several major media companies have called on Google to properly screen their AdSense partners and stop supporting sites that are benefiting from piracy. 'Legal filings show that Google worked with EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com from 2003 to 2005, generating more than $1.1 million in revenue for the sites through the AdSense program. Google reportedly noticed the amount of traffic and advertising served by the two websites and assigned them an account representative to help optimize their efforts.'"

Comments

Guilty by association?

[nietsch]

So what is it exactly that google did that was illegal? paying someone for some adspace does not make you responsible for the rest of the page. Or does the RIAAmob think otherwise?

Re:Guilty by association?

[truthsearch]

Normally I'd agree with you. But when you get large enough you get personal attention from Google employees. That means Google spent resources to assist the sites in placement, styles, and other tips. Google's not responsible for the content, but they definitely optimized their profits off of potentially illegal content. It's not dirty but it doesn't feel completely clean, either.

Re:Guilty by association?

[AKAImBatman]

If the grocery store had a guy set aside specifically to work with the pirate to help make him a millionaire, then I'd say you have some kind of comparison.

That's not a very good analogy. A better one is that a fellow comes into the grocery store every so often and makes exceptionally large purchases. The store manager talks with the fellow a bit about his grocery purchasing habits. The fellow replies that he needs the food for his "crew". The store manager then says that he'll help by assigning a special employee to expidite the fellow's shopping trips.

Six months later, the press walks in and says, "How can you provide such service to a known pirate!?"

Re:Guilty by association?

[SnowZero]

Well apparently at some point "Do no evil" became "Uphold the law" in some people's minds. The funny thing is that people get angry at Google for following the law in China, but if when they don't enforce the law, other people get angry. It is dumb to expect every company dealing with many thousands of clients to check every one of them. If Google helped these sites, it probably was no more than some emails or phone calls; I doubt they really looked at their business model or anything, as that isn't really relevant to placing ads on their website.

In the past, I've helped people get my GPL'ed libraries working by exchanging a few emails, but I don't know what they are doing with them. Am I guilty if it turns out they are using it to break the law? After all I "worked" with them to get it functioning. If a car salesman sells a car to someone asking for a car "which can cross the state quickly", and that client later commits a murder and goes on the run, is the salesman guilty? He "advised" the client on how to "optimize" his nefarious plan.

No, these people should not be guilty, because it is madness to expect everyone to "enforce" laws on their clients, going only on mere suspicion. The most you should ask of people or companies is to report suspicious activity to the relevant authorities, and let them investigate it. Refusing to do business with a company could actually put you at a greater legal risk if that company turns out to be legitimate.

Re:Guilty by association?

[SatanicPuppy]

Oh please. Want to find someone who profits from terrorism? It's not hard. Cable news companies make a mint, a number of duct tape manufacturers get a nice spike in sales, lot of people go out and buy guns and bibles.

And piracy? Why don't they go after the lawyers and politicians who are making money hand over fist?

Re:Guilty by association?

[Myopic]

I disagree. I side with the way the law currently stands, which includes a "reasonability" test. With this test in mind, the question becomes whether or not the person providing the good/service has reasonable expectation to know that the good/service will be used illegally. Obviously, this is a big grey area, but it is good enough to assign legal obligation. For instance, if a guy with a gunshot wound and a bag full of cash runs out of a bank and gets in your cab, and asks you (not forces you at gunpoint; merely asks you) to drive him across state lines, then you have a reasonable obligation to say no, or in some way not help in the bank robbery.

That is pretty close to your example of a mechanic helping get a fast car into the hands of a criminal. That one might be in the gray area, and might hinge on how clear it is that the guy was going to commit a crime. Another good example is head shops, which sell products often used for illicit drug use: Clinton winked at head shops and let them sell bongs to stoners; but Bush wouldn't do that, he enforced the law and closed down a lot of head shops all over the country, saying they had a reasonable expectation that bongs weren't being used as "tobacco water pipes".

In the case at hand, Google would also be in the gray area, and the question is whether they had a reasonable expectation that ThePirageBay.ORG was engaging in illegal activity. From what little I know of this case, I am inclined to give Google the benefit of the doubt, especially considering ThePirateBay claims they don't break any of their local laws. But, I do object to your suggestion that ancillary consideration given to a criminal by a knowing third party does not or should not attach responsibility onto that third party -- it does, as it should.

Common carrier laws for advertisers

[dsanfte]

I think we need a 'common carrier' style law for advertising programs. It's obviously not possible for Google to police each and every website that signs up for ad impressions.

Local law?

[garcia]

Both sites sold a repackaged BitTorrent client and access to a P2P search system, but the defendants argue that they are not guilty of the charges.

Where are these sites located? First off, selling repackaged BitTorrent clients isn't against the law. Second, are these sites hosted and run from areas of the world that permit you to link to torrents regardless of their content?

While this would be an embarrassment to Google here in the US because our media sucks and never tells full truths, it wouldn't matter legally in those countries.

Google should screen against illegal activities in the country of origin.

What?

[Lithdren]

So they want Google to check every website that shows up in their searches, and make sure a law isn't being broken somewhere, there's no illegal copywrite infringement, ect.?

Thats like requesting the United Postal Service to check every single package to make sure nobody is mailing love letters to anyone other then their husbands/wives. You could do it, with enough money and willpower, MAYBE, but its not excatly their responsibility.

Re:What?

[cliffski]

that's not vaguely what is suggested or said. try reading the article.
Google didn't accidentally let a pirate site through the net. They awarded an account manager to them, and generated a million dollars worth of revenue for them. They made 2 guys who were trying to make money from trading copyrighted content into millionaires, no doubt boosting some google profits at the same time.
Try and at least read the summary.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your a respectable business and you find out that you are clearly working with criminals

Criminals? Have these guys been prosecuted for anything or is it a purely civil matter? Although it is true that copyright infringement can in some circumstances in some jurisdictions amount to a criminal offense, it sure isn't Google's job to find them guilty or otherwise. The most that should be expected of them if they really suspected criminal activity is to report the matter to the police.

Hardly...

[cliffski]

If your company is knowingly helping to do business with a company that is breaking the law, you don't think you have a duty to stop doing business with them?
Imagine your a second-hand computer store that realises that the guy who turns up every monday with a bunch of new PCs is quite clearly stealing them from nearby offices. Do you think you have a leg to stand on when you say its nothing to do with you?
Its a different situation if you don't know that a business you deal with is engaged in illegal activity. In a case where you clearly do, and clearly take no action, I'm guessing you are on extremely dodgy ground legally.
I would much rather live in a world where legit businesses like google took reasonable steps to *not* work with dodgy companies who are engaged in illegal activity.

Just because this might involve the 'RIAAmob' doesn't mean that google is innocent.

Re:Hardly...

[ElleyKitten]

Imagine your a second-hand computer store that realises that the guy who turns up every monday with a bunch of new PCs is quite clearly stealing them from nearby offices. Do you think you have a leg to stand on when you say its nothing to do with you?

That's a slightly different scenerio, because that's receiving stolen goods, which is very clearly a crime. A more apt analogy is if the guy next store keeps bringing in new, appearently stolen computers to his store, and then comes to you to buy flowers to decorate the store. Google had nothing to do with distributing the pirated things on these websites, they just bought adspace from them, which is completely legal.

So effing what?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

So effing what? Google also accepts ads from pinkos, right-wing nutjobs and presidential candidates.

Hell, because of its volume, it's probably also safe to say Google does business with active sexual predators, drug dealers and serial murderers.

Google's just an average media company, like NBC, not the thought police. Let the market sort it out: if people decide that all the losers Google whores for really are just selling crap, they'll figure it out eventually.

Google HAD to support these sites.

[gasmonso]

Remember that Google is based in the US. If they discriminated against these site and removed their Adsense, Google would have been sued. So clearly they did the right thing ;)

gasmonso

Benefitting from piracy

[hackstraw]

To some degree artists and record labels benefit from piracy, but lets hold off on that, but it is a form of marketing.

Harddrive manufactures, companies that sell MP3 players, blank media, and all of that benefits from piracy.

Personally, I believe that content should be free or kinda taxed/subsidized by hardware. Hardware breaks, and has to be either replaced or done without.

I pay my ISP a flat fee for internet, but I don't pay for "content" besides my donation to slashdot.

I pay hundreds/thousands of dollars for hardware that breaks all the time, but I don't pay a small fraction of that on software because its just not worth it.

Re:Where's the problem?

[cliffski]

Jesus. Nobody was even suggesting that google even tell the RIAA about it. All they want them to do is not to work actively with pirates to make them into millionaires. This is hardly an evil shock tactic.

Good or law-abiding?

[Infonaut]

Here's the conundrum: Even if it was lawful, was it "good?"

I believe the more power and control of capital a company acquires, the more difficult it is for the company to examine its own behavior under the lens of ethics. In time all decisions become decided on the basis of whether they are legal or not, which is a completely different calculus. A company can scrupulously follow the law and still act unethically.

The "do no evil" mantra might help Google employees feel like they're not actually working at a tremendously powerful publicly-traded company, and it probably still has a lot of influence on decisionmaking at the company. But I have a hard time believing that we won't be reading more and more stories of questionable ethics at Google as their power grows. I commend the leadership at Google for attempting to buck the forces at work here, but power still corrupts; it's the nature of the beast.

Re:Good or law-abiding?

[frank_adrian314159]

Here's the conundrum: Even if it was lawful, was it "good?"

In my opinion, yes.

Google could decide that it would be the arbiter of what should be advertised on its pages. In most cases, it has not. This is a tremendous amount of restraint for a company that could literally name winners and losers in the marketplace. In treating even scumballs like this (and I say that not because of the downloading, but because their stuff is adware-infested crap) in an evenhanded manner, I think that Google is doing the right thing. Remember that free speech (and yes, advertising is speech) is worthless unless we also defend the speech of scumballs. Google has done nothing that they would not have done with any other client of that size. And that *is* good.

AT&T benefit from Mafia crime!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The mob use phones to set up deals and pay AT&T!

Re:AT&T benefit from Mafia crime!

[TClevenger]

Very true. My dedicated AT&T rep knows that my company does "web services", and attempts to recommend services based on my usage patterns, but if asked, I doubt she knows specifically what we do.

Hear hear!

[captainjaroslav]

And while we're at it, the recording industry should stop doing business with any known drug-law violators! In fact, I say the motion picture industry should refuse to hire actors who have a speeding ticket on their record. This new assault on illegal activity will surely result in a better world for all of us.

Verdict: not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Data duplication and distribution is not morally equivalent to murder and rape, and hence it is not "piracy."

In fact, IMO, sharing songs and what-not is not morally wrong. The laws that make it illegal are unjust, and an unjust law is no law at all. So, IMO, it is only "technically" illegal, those laws should not be enforced or obeyed. Qualifier: I am not a proponent of the complete dissolution of copyright or other "Intellectual Property" (sic) type laws, though I do think that these laws need some very extreme changes. At present they do more harm than good (their enforcement requires taking control of the hardware of every individual in the world, which is both a crime against personal freedom and also technologically impossible), so they can and should be ignored.

So, even if we set aside the (possibly correct) notions of Google's hands being clean since they didn't commit the crime but merely failed to police their huge customer base for illegal activity, I will still say that Google's dirty, dirty hands are far from evil.

Stop press!!! Post office Colluded with Unabomber!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Ted Kazinsky used the post office to mail his bombs. The USPS "benefitted" by selling its services to Unabomber. Many criminals used the Post office to send mail. Two Pakistani taxi driver brothers share a passport. (First one goes to Pak, mails his passport back, brother follows three weeks later. One bro comes back, mails the passport back to Pak, the other brother, not neccessarily the same one who returned, comes in again. They claim they have been doing it for ages. True or just a fancy cricket ground tall tale bragging cant be verified) Post office benefits by their business too. So what is so special about google?

More & Less

[Trendy.Ideology]

Less stories about my beloved Google.com doing bad things for money. More stories about what our President, and his associates do for money. Whatever happened to those Enron guys, anyway?

But seriously...

Until they even prove/convict someone of something on a website like that, is it even fair, according to our legal system's Innocent Until Proven Guilty policy, to say that Google is advertising on websites engaged in illegal activity? I for one, like my warez, pr0n, and MP3s. And anything that helps keep those sites up is in my eyes good.

Just because the RIAA and other bodies that would like to shut down those sites are unsuccessful, doesn't mean they need to start harassing google over letting those websites make enough money to operate off their ad program.