Belgian Newspapers Delisted On Google

D H NG writes "After being ordered by the Belgian courts to 'remove from its Google.be and Google.com sites, and in particular, cached links visible on Google Web and the Google News service, all articles, photographs and graphics of daily newspapers published in French and German by Belgian publishers,' Google had removed all traces of the newspapers in question from all its search services. The newspapers, however, are crying foul, and alleged that it was done in retaliation for being sued for copyright violations."

Comments

Of course it was done in retaliation.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you gonna do about it?

(Google does support a noarchive robots extension tag, so instead of suing Google, you could have had just the search results without content by simply adjusting your server output.)

Re:Of course it was done in retaliation.

[icebraining]

More: the Google News bot has a different User-Agent, so you can block it without blocking the search engine crawler.

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=93977

Re:Of course it was done in retaliation.

[eulernet]

Here is the business plan of these newspapers:

1) Sue Google
2) Win , but be delisted
3) Wait for Bing to pay a license fee for their content
4) Profit !

Bing will easily attract the million of viewers that Google was providing.

I'm trying to parse this

[Compaqt]

Help me out:

1) "After being ordered by the Belgian courts to 'remove from its Google.be and Google.com sites, and in particular, cached links visible on Google Web and the Google News service, all articles, photographs and graphics of daily newspapers published in French and German by Belgian publishers,'

2) Google had removed all traces of the newspapers in question from all its search services.

#2 is the exact thing the court ordered in #1, right?

So why, O, why, are the publishers whining in #3:

3) The newspapers, however, are crying foul, and alleged that it was done in retaliation for being sued for copyright violations."

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[gl4ss]

they didn't want to get automatically syndicated to google's news portals. so they asked to be removed from that auto syndication, which probably was giving them headaches as they didn't have copyrights to allow for such. so now what google did was to remove them totally from google services. it's just one example why you should keep a search service separate from auto generated portals. or just reform copyright and get out of the mess.
 
  but i'd imagine for example if they license a story from reuters or whatever, they're only licensing it for their own use and not for re-licensing - which would be needed to auto syndicate it to google news site.

  this is only sort of fair, you see, building a service like google news isn't hard at all - what's hard is letting the content providers let you do it.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[pipatron]

The english document that is available seem to support Google.

Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites (Google News and "cache" Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of 1,000,000.- ? per day of delay

It sounds very weird, probably machine-translated, but withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites sounds pretty straight-forward.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[MimeticLie]

Actually, I think it did. From Chilling Effects:

- Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites (Google News and "cache" Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of 1,000,000.- ? per day of delay;

Emphasis mine. If Google isn't allowed to have any content from the newspapers on any of Google's sites and search engine indexing is based on content, then how is it supposed to index the pages?

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

but i'd imagine for example if they license a story from reuters or whatever, they're only licensing it for their own use and not for re-licensing - which would be needed to auto syndicate it to google news site.

Google never has "auto-syndicated" anything from the news websites it aggregates on google news. At most it thumbnails images, pulls headlines and lead sentences. Every full-content article you find hosted on news.google.com itself was licensed from the newswires by google themselves.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[afidel]

In addition googlebot follows noindex and nocache in robots.txt so if they don't want their content to be included that's their choice without involving lawyers. Heck, if they want it indexed but no summaries to show up (and thus exclude the results from the news feed I assume) they could use the nonstandard nosnippet tag that googlebot will follow.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[icebraining]

They can have the link, but without any content to match the searches, they'd never show up.

Google followed the court order, nothing more.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[Tridus]

So why didn't they just have their web servers issue a 403 Forbidden when the Google news bot shows up? It's not like it's hard to detect, since it calls itself the Google news bot.

Hey look at that, problem solved without lawyers and asshattery. I guess that made far too much sense for the MBAs.

Re:I'm trying to parse this

[TapeCutter]

Robots.txt is not a solution to their problem. The problem they have is falling revenue, the solution they want is a slice of google pie.

Uh, tough?

[_Shad0w_]

I think the correct response is "tough". Google have no obligation to include your site in their search results and if you start fucking around claiming copyright violation then the easiest way for Google to deal with it is to remove any trace of your sites entirely.

Welcome to the unintended consequences of your actions. Next time think about what you're doing a little harder.

Re:Uh, tough?

[grim-one]

You're welcome to opt-out with your robots.txt

Re:Uh, tough?

[Shadow of Eternity]

I'm having a hard time calling this censorship. It's more like giving up on a tantrumming child who's WAY to picky about their food and just saying "Fine, he'll eat when he gets hungry."

Re:Uh, tough?

[SerpentMage]

No the problem and I can understand Google's perspective is that they were sued for doing linking. Google said fine you sued us, but now we have to remove you because we might get in trouble again.

You may say its retaliation. I say its because of the software. Think about it. Google has this huge search engine that goes through the Internet. I am betting the news.google.com is a service that sits ontop of the search engine. So now Google has to remove the websites in question. They can do it one of two ways:

1) Create a "don't use this content link" in news.google.com, which means changing their software.
2) Add the websites in question to do not crawl thus removing them from everything.

Remember that Google has a ton of services that work off the Google search engine. Does Google want to wait and get sued again because now instead of news.google.com its some other service that is doing the offending? I would just say it, bugger it remove them from the search engine. And of course a side benefit is that they get to release some steam.

Re:Uh, tough?

[cyberthanasis12]

Welcome to the unintended consequences of your actions. Next time think about what you're doing a little harder.

What unintended? That's what they asked for, that's what they got. I am all for EU, I am European myself, but for once an American company did exactly what the court ordered. And now we complain?

A case of be careful what you wish for

[Liam Pomfret]

Sounds to me like that court order pretty much required Google to do what they did. I assume the newspapers simply didn't realise exactly what it was they were really asking for when they made that attack, and I'm sure their competitors are loving them for it right now.

Money

[xkuehn]

If Google doesn't remove them from its searches, they demand money on the basis of ridiculous copyright claims.

If Google does remove them, they demand money on the basis of Google abusing its monopoly to punish them.

I know it doesn't make sense if you're sane, but that's how these sorts of people reason.

Re:Money

[RsG]

Okay, this is partly a case of a poorly written summary. From reading the second article, here's the short version.

A number of newspapers in Belgium won a suit against Google for putting their papers in Google News. The judge in the case ordered Google to remove the sites. Rather than just removing the sites from their news aggregator, they also delisted them from their search engine.

Depending on how much slack you want to give Google, this is either a case of the judge's order being over broad or Google deliberately implementing it in an over broad fashion in order to make a point. I tend toward the latter interpretation; they are not so subtly reminding the papers that they need Google more than Google needs their content.

Now the newspapers are crying foul. They do want to get listed in search results when someone goes looking for them, but don't want to be "plagiarized" (their interpretation, not mine) by Google News.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the link pointing to the actual judge's order. You see:
- Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites (Google News and "cache" Google or any other name) within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of
1,000,000.- ? per day of delay;

What don't you understand with "from all their sites". Then in the clarification between brackets it says again: "or any other name".

Re:Money

[snowgirl]

...from all their sites (Google News and "cache" Google or any other name) ...

Heh. Be careful what you ask for. You might get it. Also sounds like the Judge is wearing his ass for a hat but that's so common it isn't newsworthy.

I'm not sure how this works in Belgium, but in the US, the moving party typically writes the order themselves, and the judge just signs off. So, it's entirely likely that the Belgian Newspapers screwed themselves by trying to ensure that there weren't loopholes to their order.

Re:Money

[telekon]

As much as Google seems like practically a public utility, it is a publicly-traded corporation allowed to protect its own interests and has a fiduciary responsibility to act in what its directors feel is the best interest fo its shareholders.

That means if Larry and Sergei feel that shareholder interests are best protected by de-listing any site that marginally fucks with Google in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, (i.e., frivolous lawsuits in indulgent Belgian court systems), guess what? Goodbye Belgian papers.

TL;DR: Don't fuck with Google. You won't like their 'remedy.'

"Don't be evil" is a mission statement with a broad interpretation.

Re:Money

[RsG]

You are aware of the concept of malicious compliance, I hope?

The judge's order did not explicitly mention Google search, but did explicitly mention Google news and ambiguously mentioned "by any other name", which can be interpreted either way. So, there are a couple of other ways this could have gone.

Google could have asked for clarification. Judges will do that if prompted. Contrary to what some of the armchair lawyers on slashdot will tell you, intent matters in law. If intent is unclear, it's universally understood that you ask first before proceeding. Clarification would have revealed no intent to delist the papers. Or Google could have used common sense to interpret the order narrowly to mean "delist the papers from Google news". It is obvious that they would not be fined for continuing to display search results. If the decision makers really felt the need to cover their asses, a simple phone call to their lawyers would tell them to ask the judge for clarification.

Hence, I think it's obvious this is a case of malicious compliance. They deliberately choose the interpretation of an ambiguous court order that snubbed the newspapers. They will, along with some of the slashdot crowd, get around this by pretending the ambiguity wasn't there.

Now, I know that some hotheaded idiot or Google apologist is already typing a furious reply to this post, so I'm going to preempt the inevitable: I'm siding with Google on this one. Yes, I think they were being dicks, but frankly if I were in their shoes I would have done the exact same thing. There'll be an clarification of the original court order shortly relisting the papers, but the message to the papers in question - "You need us more than we need you" - was much deserved.

Re:Money

[werewolf1031]

They will, along with some of the slashdot crowd, get around this by pretending the ambiguity wasn't there.

Umm...

Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites

WHAT ambiguity? Where?! Sorry, but you're just making up any "ambiguity" out of thin air. The judge's order was pretty damned comprehensive and inclusive. There's nothing Google could have excluded without running afoul of the order as it was worded. They followed it to the letter, no more and no less. There is no room for interpretation with the phrasing "from all their sites", unless you expect Google to pull a Clinton and ask the judge to define the word "all".

Re:Money

[Zugok]

Or Google could have used common sense to interpret the order narrowly to mean "delist the papers from Google news". It is obvious that they would not be fined for continuing to display search results.

True, but Google faces a fine of 1 million euros each day that it does not comply (with 10 days' grace). At one million euros a day, I be taking a broad interpretation too.

Re:Money

[SvnLyrBrto]

Basically, it boils down to one thing:

Lawyers are bullshit artists extraordinaire. And the law is their paintbrush. This is the same lot who can take a statement like: "shall make no law", which by all rational standards should amount to a very simple boolean, and come up with a meaning like: "should, in general, refrain from making laws unless they really feel like it".

Obviously, it's no different in Belgium.

Re:Confused

[kjoonlee]

I don't understand the logic behind the whining of these newspapers. First they sue Google for making their content discoverable. Then the court orders Google to remove the content. Google complies. Now the papers are whining about Google removing their content. What exactly is it that they want ?

I think they want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to appear on Google web searches, but they don't want to be aggregated on Google News.

They got what they asked for, not what they wanted

[darkonc]

They claim that links to their sites are illegal and sue to have them removed -- soo now they're removed.

Google doesn't want to have to deal with another lawsuit over whether this link or that link is illegal. Nor are they going to spend extra money trying to be nice to somebody who used a blunderbuss lawsuit against them.

All of the links that they want removed are removed. Job done. The rest is just Google being very, very thorough.

It's kinda like a kid pissing on a wasps nest and complaining that the wasps didn't just quietly wait to drown. He'll be holding his breath a long time waiting for me to feel sorry for him -- or stop laughing, for that matter.

Of course it was done in retaliation!

[Dahamma]

So they thought that "pay us for using our content" meant "now you have to use our content and then pay us". Oops, maybe not!

It does sound like a particularly (French-)Belgian idea, though. Next we'll hear they are parking tractors on the Information Superhighway in protest...

Google needs to do this more often.

[Anonymous Coward]

All these companies and sites that get all pissy with google over stupid stuff...

First thing google should do in any case of complaints or being sued is to strip ALL refrences to the offending site/company from their index.

"We feel the only contact we should have with $org$ is thru our lawyers."

As a google investor i like this idea.

Re:Google *IS* the internet

[Chris Mattern]

a foreign, private, and fully unaccountable organisation.

Man, you're fond of that phrase. It's at least the second post you've used it verbatim in. Let's have a look at it.

"Foreign": Not to me, they're not. And everybody's foreign to somebody.

"Private": Which means they don't have the right to extract money and obedience by force. Oooh, evil.

"Unaccountable": On the contrary, they're very accountable--to the people who do searches. If they compromise their ability to serve up accurate, comprehensive and useful searches, people will go elsewhere. They're not accountable at all to the sites being searched, and a damn good thing, too.

court said : all their sites

[Weezul]

I'm happy that Google takes the high road more often than not.

In this case, Google has done exactly what the court ordered, well according to this English translation :

Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites (Google News and "cache" Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of 1,000,000 per day of delay

If the court had issued a more detailed order, like banning Google News only but granting Google web search a fair use exemption, then I'm sure Google would've followed that order instead.

If the court had merely banned Google from displaying the pictures and text snippets, but explicitly permitted them to use the titles, then Google would likely still show the results in Google News, but ranked very lowly. Search results should obviously not be cluttered up by stupid links without summaries.

I'd guess the paper's layer obtained this strong language thinking they'd negotiate some licensing deal with google. Yet first, google must obviously implement the literal court order as written. duh! Second, any licensing deal is unlikely to benefit the papers much because the papers depend more upon google than google depends upon them. Why should google buy their text snippets when other good Belgian papers give text snippets about the same subject matter for free?

Re:court said : all their sites

[Weezul]

Oops, there are two court orders here, one from yesterday and one from 2006.

If the current court explicitly order covers Google Index, well that's the second time the papers pulled this stunt this stupidly, which is just give the French more ammo for their Belgian jokes (hint : the French always joke about Belgians being stupid).

If the current court order only explicitly covers Google News, unlike the last court order, then Google is simply covering their ass by removing the content from Google Index too. Imho, that's the correct response until the courts have explicitly okayed some links.

In the long run, Google Index obviously generates it's news results using Google News, meaning a news site not indexed by Google News will never make the Google Index front page anyways. So the papers will never see any traffic even after the court okays Google Index.

Re:Google *IS* the internet

[KDR_11k]

Also Google News could only steal their readers if the newspapers actually had stories that couldn't be found on other publications. If they're just copy-pasting AP/AFP/whatever articles they're getting crushed on the internet either way.

I know this is Slashdot, but read the article

[Zuriel]

Google said an order issued in the case required it to exclude the newspapers' websites.

This does appear to be the case. Remove content from "all your sites" is very broad, and with the penalties mentioned I'd remove them, too. Seems an entirely reasonable response to that court order, especially accompanied by the relist offer.

The paper La Capitale said on its web site Friday that Google had begun "boycotting" it.

Google spokesman William Echikson said the court decision applied to web search as well as Google News and the company faced fines of 25,000 euros ($35,359 per infringement if it allowed the newspapers' websites to keep appearing.

"We regret having to do so," he said. "We would be happy to re-include Copiepresse if they would indicate their desire to appear in Google Search and waive the potential penalties."

See that last line? Google has explicitly said, give us permission to list you in search again and we will, no questions asked. So all the people jumping up and down about Google abusing their monopolistic power... no. They aren't.

I really don't see how this is anything but a cash grab by the newspapers that misfired. After Google's offer to relist them as soon as they have permission, it's going to be quite awkward to A) deny Google that permission and then B) sue Google for delisting you. But I'm certain the newspapers will try. The delist and offer to relist seems to be a simple attempt to cut through legal shenanigans on Google's part. "We can list you or not list you. Say which one you want and we'll do it." And then afterwards, they can't cry about being unhappy with their status anymore with any real credibility.

Exactly

[Weezul]

Any papers could exclude exactly the content they want excluded from exactly the google sites they want it excluded because Google's news indexer has a separate user agent.

If they get an injunction however, then Google must obviously read the injunction as broadly as possible to avoid fines.

Google's response

[xonen]

Google responded to a query from a dutch newsite regarding this issue.

Source: http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/107318/google-verbant-belgische-kranten--uitgevers-woest.html

Relevant quote, translated:
``We regret having taken this action, and are open for future cooperation with members of Copiepresse. Would we keep the material in our index, we risk fines up to 25,000 euro per incident. We would be pleased to include Copiepresse in our index if they declare they want to be included on Google Search and refrain from potentional charges``, Google declares to Webwereld.

Original response in dutch:
``"Het spijt ons dat we dit moeten doen, en we staan open voor samenwerking met leden van Copiepresse in de toekomst. Zouden we het materiaal in de index houden, dan riskeren we boetes tot 25.000 euro per inbreuk. We nemen Copiepresse graag weer op in de index als ze aangeven op Google Search te willen verschijnen en afzien van potentiële boetes", verklaart Google tegenover Webwereld.``

Yeah, exactly

[Weezul]

Copiepresse's lawyers won a strongly worded injunction on behalf of these three papers. Google is making sure they don't violate it.

Ironically, the papers already had the ability to control how their content was displayed on google, through the nosnippets and nocache flags in metatags, google news' separate user agent id, etc. All they've achieved is : Now the papers must pay Copiepresse lawyers to make those changes slowly rather than paying their own technical people to make them quickly.