Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Judge Orders Hundreds of Websites Delisted From Search Engines, Social Networks

Posted by Soulskill on from the what-on-earth dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A federal judge has ruled that a number of a websites trafficking in counterfeit Chanel goods can have their domains seized and transferred to a new registrar. Astonishingly, the judge also ordered that the sites must be de-indexed from all search engines and all social media websites. Quoting the article: 'Missing from the ruling is any discussion of the Internet's global nature; the judge shows no awareness that the domains in question might not even be registered in this country, for instance, and his ban on search engine and social media indexing apparently extends to the entire world. (And, when applied to U.S.-based companies like Twitter, apparently compels them to censor the links globally rather than only when accessed by people in the U.S.) Indeed, a cursory search through the list of offending domains turns up poshmoda.ws, a site registered in Germany. The German registrar has not yet complied with the U.S. court order, though most other domain names on the list are .com or .net names and have been seized.'"

4 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. For non US-filtered search results by CmdrPony · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you don't want your search results filtered by US, use Yandex or alternatively Baidu.

    There is also European StartPage / Ixquick, but it's more for privacy. It aggregates results from Google and other search engines, so US censors still apply. Yandex and Baidu are completely independant search engines.

    Sadly, this is what US has become.

    1. Re:For non US-filtered search results by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh, the irony! (for those who don't wanna click even on a Wikipedia link: Baidu is a Chinese search engine and is one, and probably the, worst at censorship of all search engines.)

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    2. Re:For non US-filtered search results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      In all likelihood, the judge just signed off on a proposed injunction order drafted by the plaintiffs (the trademark holders). I'm assuming the defendants (the trademark infringers) didn't appear, thus allowing the court to enter an injunction against them by default. Usually, the courts have the winning side draft the terms of the proposed injunction, and the judge reviews and modifies it as necessary. Here, the "deleting" the websites from "all search engines" was probably some stupid language the plaintiff put in and the judge either didn't notice it or didn't think about how stupid that language is. Ultimately, it doesn't matter-- the injunction binds only those people who are parties to the case (the trademark infringers) or who work in "active concert" with them -- something that no court would deem a search engine to be.

    3. Re:For non US-filtered search results by TheEyes · · Score: 5, Informative

      Remember that most Chinese believe that it's for the country's good that government tries to keep some control.

      I'm Chinese and I despise sinophile apologist fucks like you. You have no right to speak for anyone.

      I'm also Chinese and I have to say GP is unfortunately correct. Poll after poll of people actually living in Communist China shows the vast, vast majority think that the government should play a role in "protecting the people from dangerous ideas" and the like. They're fools, and they're wrong, but they're out there, just like the lunatic Fox News fringe exists here in the US (which unfortunately makes up a large enough voting bloc to win a majority of Congress in 2010).

      You can be as indignant as you want, but don't ignore reality just because it disgusts you; that's kind of what those other people that you'd rather ignore are doing.