Company Fined €25,000 For Altering Wikipedia

hcs_$reboot writes "A French court ordered a company to pay 25,000 Euros to a competitor about which she had removed the name of a Wikipedia entry dedicated to her field. Hi-Media, the defendant, was identified thanks to her IP address found from the Wikipedia page."

Comments

Horribly Summary

[sanosuke001]

That summary makes no sense whatsoever; can someone translate?

Re:Horribly Summary

[The MAZZTer]

Sounds like Hi-Media specialized in field A. On Wikipedia page for Field A, Competitor B was mentioned. Someone at Hi-Media edited the Wikipedia page for Field A to remove all references to Competitor B. And I assume it was sanctioned by Hi-Media if they're getting in trouble for it

Re:Horribly Summary

[Zenaku]

The link goes to a google translation of the article, so I'm guessing the summary was "translated" from the original as well.

I agree, it's completely unintelligible. I only get that one company is suing another over a Wikipedia edit. I think that the defendant company removed the plaintiff company from a list of companies providing some service. I think all the she and her stuff must be because of gendered nouns in the original language.

Re:Horribly Summary

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

entabiliweb had noticed that his name had been erased from the record "Micropayment" on Wikipedia. L'entrée donnait une liste de sites Internet où cette activité est disponible. The entry gave a list of websites where this activity is available. Or, Rentabiliweb s'est aperçu que le 9 juillet 2008 , la référence à son site avait disparu. Dans l'historique des versions , elle ausculte les IP et remontent jusqu'à Hi-Media qu'elle accuse alors d'avoir tenté de lui nuire. But Rentabiliweb realized that July 9, 2008 , the reference to his site had disappeared. In the version history , it auscultates IPs and go back to Hi-Media accuses it of trying to harm.

I think Google Translate auscultates it perfectly cromulently, what's your question?

Re:Horribly Summary

[sunderland56]

Correct. The field in question is micropayments. Hi-Media and Rentabiliweb are both companies that handle micropayments. The French Wikipedia page for Micropayments used to list both companies. Someone from Hi-Media edited the page, and deleted the name of Rentabiliweb. Court found in favour of Rentabiliweb for 25,000 euros (roughly $36,000). Edit logs from Wikipedia and reverse DNS was the main evidence.

Re:Horribly Summary

[jandoedel]

It's about companies that offer micropayment.

There was a list of companies that offered this service, and Hi-Media removed their competitor from that list. The competitor (Rentabiliweb) noticed this, and found out that the IP address of the edit belonged to a computer at Hi-Media, which the judge saw as proof that Hi-Media sanctioned it.

Rentabiliweb claimed 150 000 in damages, but only got 25 000, because "people don't usually visit Wikipedia to find companies that offer services"

Re:Horribly Summary

[smitty97]

Were they forced to make 5 million payments of 0.005 euros each?

Re:Horribly Summary

[Culture20]

Anglophones really hate using "it" to refer to people, thus you end up with "he/she needs to eat his/her food", instead of "it needs to eat its food"

Most Americans use "they" instead of he/she, since he-she is sometimes used to refer to a transvestite. It's odd when you stop to think about using a plural for a singular pronoun of indeterminant gender, but it's better than it or he/she.

Re:Horribly Summary

[ZackSchil]

From my dictionary:

The word they as a singular pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified sex has been used since at least the 16th century. In the late 20th century, as the traditional use of he to refer to a person of either sex came under scrutiny on the grounds of sexism, this use of they has become more common. It is now generally accepted in contexts where it follows an indefinite pronoun such as anyone, no one, someone, or a person.

In other contexts, coming after singular nouns, the use of they is now common, although less widely accepted, esp. in formal contexts. Sentences such as : ask a friend if they could help are still criticized for being ungrammatical. Nevertheless, in view of the growing acceptance of they and its obvious practical advantages, they is used in this dictionary in many cases where he would have been used formerly.

Wikipedia admins beware

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can sue you for recommending our pages for speedy deletion. Take that!

Re:So Wikipedia is a marketing website now?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Since when is Wikipedia an appropriate place to advertise?

Since Jimbo needed money?

Attempted summary

[Max Romantschuk]

My French is rather rusty... but here's a go:

A company (A) had removed the name of their competitor (B) form the (French) Wikipedia article on Micropayments. Thanks to Wikipedia's logs the company who had their name removed (B) was able to identify the culprit as their competitor (A) and sued, successfully claiming 25,000 € in damages.

French natives, please correct me if I'm misreading here. :)

Re:Attempted summary

[Trigger31415]

You're right.
Moreover, Company A = Hi-Média, and Company B = Rentabiliweb.

Re:Attempted summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I dropped out of this conversation on account of AC being insane. He/she would frequently burst into rants about his/her high school French teacher being insane.

Re:That's a bit presumptuous

[MacTO]

This sounds like a case of company A saying something about company B, so company A sues company B. It sounds like Wikipedia was just the venue and that the person who made the edit was just an employee. In other words, this sounds more like business law than anything that has to do with the freedom of speech.

Re:What????

[erroneus]

The triviality of an act does not mean it is trivial. For some people, it is trivial to steal a car. With a nice repo-man's tow truck, I can steal cars REALLY fast and it doesn't even require lock picking skillz. In fact, the relative ease in which a bladed instrument can be plunged into the heart of another human should be an even more dramatic example of something that is trivial to perform but is not trivial in nature.

So when one company sets out to limit the exposure of another, this is trivial to do on wikipedia, but it is, in truth, anti-competitive behavior and should be punished fiercely. You can stack all kinds of ridiculous technological measures out there, but the party(s) involved already knew it was wrong and should have known it might even be criminal.

In short, the idea that it's not "so" wrong because it's too easy is kinda weak.

Re:That's a bit presumptuous

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes, a chilling effect on company shills from using public resources to help their business and hurt their competitors. In the end, no big loss.

Re:Terrific

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, this is about a shill from one company trying to edit Wikipedia to remove references to their competitor. It has nothing to do with your strawman.

Re:Identified by IP

[RobertLTux]

here is the difference

The Company purchased Internet access (and a fixed block of ip addresses)
The edit was done from an ip address in said FIXED BLOCK of addresses
Therefore the COMPANY was held liable

Its the difference in the real world of a business getting held responsible for a letterbomb sent by courier from a street address
and
a person being held responsible for a letterbomb sent from a motel room (just because they happen to have been registered at that room)

But do you have a right to be in a WP article?

[JSBiff]

The fundamental question to me is what right do you have to be in a Wikipedia article? Let's assume for a moment that WP was not a publically editable site, but that it was a closed system with designated editors. Would Wikipedia be obligated to include every possible company that might be related to a particular product or service in their encyclopedia? Should they be sued for excluding some company?

If not, then why is it illegal for an editor to remove a company from a Wikipedia page? Why does it matter that it's publically editable?

The court, apparently finds it anti-competitive, but by what right does any company have to be listed in Wikipedia? Are they paying for advertising? Do they have a contract?

Now, the governing board or whatever of Wikipedia, internally, might find it to be a violation of site policy for a company to remove a competitor from Wikipedia, but why should courts be involved in what is essentially an internal governance/editorial issue at Wikipedia?

Re:But do you have a right to be in a WP article?

[improfane]

Has nothing to do with Wikipedia per se. That's not the fundamental issue.

Someone censored or supressed what was or is for selfish gain. It's wrong.

That's the anti-competitive act.

It's like me hiding your painting in a gallery so people buy mine rather than yours.

Re:But do you have a right to be in a WP article?

[erroneus]

Actually, it does and you are missing a huge point that has been demonstrated right here on slashdot multiple times. First of all, while you seem to think Google is at 100% liberty to do what it wants with its own servers and services, you are demonstrably wrong by legal precedent. Google is severely limited by what it can and cannot do by virtue of competition laws, trademark laws, copyright laws and more. The controversy over Google Ad Words is precedent enough to show that.

And barring any interference by Google itself, if one entity could affect whether another has presence on Google or anywhere on the internet, they are interfering with free trade. That is illegal by the laws of most nations in the world. My example wasn't about what Google has a right to do, but what others have a right to do TO OTHERS using Google's services.

Your view point picks on specific media items to decide what may or may not be fair business practice. My view point attempts to make no distinction. There is an inherent problem with your view in that every time a medium changes, all the rules regulating professional behavior changes with it. Consider the victory for the consumer when Bell was broken up and new regulations about personally owned equipment were guaranteed by the government. All of that went out the window when the medium changed to wireless. Where POTS service providers are barred from charging the subscriber more for using a modem, wireless carriers are perfectly free to do so. By failing to appreciate that the medium is nearly irrelevant to fairness of practice and behavior, you and others with your point of view are guaranteeing the process of abuse and resolution with each and every new technology that appears now and into the future and that every victory for the consumer will have to be re-fought and re-won each and every time.

Stupid french court

[Kaz Kylheku]

The information that was removed might have been a spam link.

It's not the purpose of Wikipedia to promote businesses.

A Wikipedia page does not owe you free advertising.

If I find that my competitor is abusing Wikipedia to boost their search engine ranking, of course I will remove it.

Re:Stupid french court

[telso]

If I find that my competitor is abusing Wikipedia to boost their search engine ranking, of course I will remove it.

And you would be violating Wikipedia guidelines. The French version is sorely lacking, but as a translation from the English version has been requested, you can read up over there, but for some quick summaries:

This page in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers. Do not write about these things unless you are certain that a neutral editor would agree that your edits improve Wikipedia.

If you have a conflict of interest, then any changes that might be seen as controversial or not strictly neutral should be first suggested on the relevant talk page or noticeboard.

If you fit either of these descriptions:

1. you are receiving monetary or other benefits or considerations to edit Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (whether directly as an employee or contractor of that organization, or indirectly as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public relations purposes); or
2. you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia; for example, by being an owner, officer, or other stakeholder of a company or other organization about which you are writing;

then you are very strongly encouraged to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that may make your edits non-neutral (biased).

Anything you say and do on Wikipedia can have real world consequences. COI editing is routinely exposed and can be reported adversely in the media. All edits are on the public record and remain so indefinitely. You do not control articles and others may delete them, keep them, or add information that would have remained little-known. While Wikipedians generally avoid naming editors and their paymasters, other media routinely do. This has led at times to extreme media embarrassment for the company or organization, dismissal (firing) of those at fault, and at times even court actions or charges, if done in a work or professional context. Editing in the interests of public relations (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon. This includes, but is not limited to, professionals paid to create or edit Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is a very public forum, and news of attempts to improperly influence Wikipedia are frequently reported in the media.

Re:What????

[improfane]

Do you really want a web where companies and individuals are actively censoring one another for personal gain? It's starting to happen already.

Imagine the day you cannot find any negative reviews for any product or company.

Your negative or critical comments are removed from a blog because they are against the sponsors.

Your posts on a forum are modified to remove links to the competitors of the recommendations you wrote.

Welcome to shillnet. Honesty and personal integrity be dammed. If you don't stop this while it is obvious, it won't send out the warning signal that society does not tolerate low and pathetic business practices. Maybe that will force people to think twice about being assholes.

Re:That's a bit presumptuous

[improfane]

Wikimedia is not the company that was wronged.

Company A actively tried to hurt B by denying readers who happened upon that article at the time the mention of that company. They had a malicious motivation to stop the company's name from being heard.

If you allow this to happen, the act of hurting competitors becomes a slippery slope:
  - supressing information about them
  - spreading FUD about them
  - physically damaging, 'removing' or intimidation them

A business ecosystem that works on these ethics is not a pleasant one (Goldman Sachs).

The author who wrote the article was probably not associated with either company, hence why both companies were mentioned. It would not have been anti-competitive if one of the companies edited the article to add their own name (it would have been against Wikipedia's neutral policy however).