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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.'"
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.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
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.
Developers: We can use your help.
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.
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 ;)
gasmonsoIn other news, it has recently been revealed that several centuries ago, cartographers actively sold maps to seafaring pirates. Legal proceedings have revealed that many well-respected mapmakers have been implicated as enablers for these pirates. Amerigo Vespucci was not available for comment, but it is suspected that this turn of events will tarnish his name...
In other news, the big three American automakers, GM, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler, along with a few smaller manufacturers are under investigation. It seems they profited when they sold thousands of vehicles to members of a number of well-known crime families.
The gub'mint is also looking into allegations that Dell has profited from selling computers to known spammers.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
The fact that the defendants were assigned an account manager is not particularly surprising: this happens to many "high traffic sites," ... but does not necessarily mean that the content of a site is closely scrutinized.
The mob use phones to set up deals and pay AT&T!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Don't be evil still applies perfectly. You just aren't reading it right. The rich are above the law, and the poor are the cause of the problems. So through simple substitution based on current society "Don't be evil" directly translates into "Don't be poor". And they most certainly are not poor, so they can't be evil.
And now its happy fun slashdot analogy time. Should the auto manufacturer be held liable for the death of a child picked up by a pedophile in their car advertised as the safest for children? (Check me out, slashdot car analogy and think of the children all in one).
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
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!?"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This makes legit people (like me) hopping mad. Imagine that you do what you can to build *useful* applications on the Internet, being sure to avoid porn, spam, and warez methods. Then, Google turns off the ads on your site, when you can barely keep up with the constant bombardment from comment spam. Then, you find out that Google is okay with providing ads for warez groups. How much fun is that?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
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.
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.
That is all.
I thought all of Google's revenue was from domain squatters, spyware programs, and viagra/stock/scam spammers. That's the first page no matter what you search for these days.
Guess we learn something new every day!
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I got "personal attention" from a Google employee with suggestions on how to optimize my ad revenue too, and my site never made more than a few hundred dollars in a month from adsense (typically much less). My impression was that they hired some data entry workers to scan through adsense customer websites and suggest better ad placements. I somehow doubt they even cared or noticed what the content of the site was, they're just looking to make sure your ads are in the most prevalent and annoying locations. The fact that they had an employee "assigned" to optimize ad placement means absolutely nothing in this instance.
How about the more obvious example of someone advertising stolen goods in the classifieds section of a major newspaper? Is it the responsibility of the newspaper to check out every classified for fraud? I don't know.
I do know that, as computers and automations have become prevalent, laws have been passed to pass the burden of the crime from the automation-regulator (Google, ISP hosts, etc) to the person actually committing the crime. Look at the DMCA for a fantastic example of how to do this.
Similar laws should apply. In the case of the DMCA, if Google or the ISP starts regulating content, they run the risk of losing their common carrier status. Instead, they wait for a complaint, and then take action. For ads, the burden should be even lighter, because one or two instances of copyright infringement on a site should not be enough to force Google to pull their ads or risk legal trouble.
Haha. Nice. I don't buy the response of the pirate though.. Instead of: "The fellow replies that he needs the food for his 'crew'." I think it would be more like : "The fellow replies, 'Arrgh - it be for me maties.'"
Of course the difference is that parking illegally can have serious consequences for road safety and/or congestion, unlike copyright infringement.
Actually, copyright infringement DOES have serious consequences for road congestion! You see, the internet is not a dumptruck. It is a series of tubes. Downloading clogs the tubes, slowing the internets down for everyone else.
CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
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?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.