Google Patents Country-Specific Content Blocking

theodp writes "Today Google was awarded US Patent No. 7,664,751 for its invention of Variable User Interface Based on Document Access Privileges, which the search giant explains can be used to restrict what Internet content people can see 'based on geographical location information of the user and based on access rights possessed for the document.' From the patent: 'For example, readers from the United States may be given "partial" access to the document while readers in Canada may be given "full" access to the document. This may be because the content provider has been granted full rights in the document from the publisher for Canadian readers but has not been granted rights in the United States, so the content provider may choose to only enable fair use display for readers in the United States.' Oh well, at least Google is 'no longer willing to continue censoring [their] results on Google.cn.'"

Comments

"Don't be evil"

[celibate for life]

This can't be a bad thing, right? Their motto makes it clear that they don't like evil stuff.

getting patents out of ACTA

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Getting patents out of ACTA is probably a very achievable goal. When we were working on an EU directive to criminalise violations of "IP", we raised a stink about the idea of becoming a criminal for violating any one of the 50,000 software patents which nobody could be expected to read.

That directive, like ACTA, was being pushed by the copyright industry. The second we make them nervous about the whole thing crumbling over patents, patents will disappear over night.

That's what's achievable, but only if we work on it. One very easy way to help is to document what's happening in ACTA regarding patents, and why software patents are terrible:

• ACTA
• studies
• arguments

swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.

Would /ignore *.tr be prior art?

[Mad-Bassist]

I mean, we had to exercise that ability one night on IRC. It's right up there with /kline *@aol.com :aaaaah!

htaccess: deny from .au = country blocking

[barwasp]

Here is another technical prior art from the usenet (for the public record)

Usenet group: de.comp.lang.perl.cgi
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 19:27:42 +1000

Title:.htacess problem

Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!news.tig.com.au!not-for-mail
From: "rodw"
Newsgroups: de.comp.lang.perl.cgi
Subject: .htacess problem
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 19:27:42 +1000
Organization: The Internet Group (Sydney)
Lines: 22
Message-ID:
NNTP-Posting-Host: p201-tnt7.syd.ihug.com.au
X-Trace: bugstomper.ihug.com.au 1002619553 5302 203.173.144.201 (9 Oct 2001 09:25:53 GMT)
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200

Hi all,

Im trying to block a country from viewing my site buy using .htaccess but am
having no luck. I am using the code below but when I put it on all domains
seemed to be blocked as I get a "500 internal error", any ideas?

AuthName "Blocking"
AuthType Basic


order allow,deny
allow from all
deny from .co.nz
deny from .net.nz
deny from .gov.nz

Rod

Prior art

[jklovanc]

This has been going on for years namely any time anyone tries to download content that the the US government considers military in nature including encryption software.