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

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.

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: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: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.

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: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.

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?