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

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.'"

Comments

For non US-filtered search results

[CmdrPony]

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.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Baloroth]

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.)

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[brusk]

On the contrary, they're GREAT at censorship.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[CmdrPony]

The largest irony is in people saying how Google or US doesn't censor search results, but like this court order and the various "x number of search results have been removed from the page after complaints from copyright owners" text in search results. Different issues, but just as much censoring.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[cslax]

That's irrelevant to the general problem. Yes, they are counterfeit goods in this case, but this country LOVES precedent. But where does it stop? Can I bring down a website because it is opposite to the views of Congress? If this is going to be continued, there needs to be strict legal guidelines to prevent abuse of power from ANY power. This is what is worrisome.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Jibekn]

In a truly capitalistic society, there is no such thing as counterfeit goods, just goods for sale.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[DarkOx]

There is no such thing as "less harmful" where censorship is concerned. We know for the experience every society has had with it going back to the start of the written word, that once you start censoring it never stops. Today its websites that might be violating copyright, tomorrow its anything a senator does not like said about him, the day after its whatever some corporation does not want you be able to publish.

All public censorship is harmful, and it should always be opposed vehemently.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[tautog]

But, apparently, enough of the other 97% still click the link.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[WaffleMonster]

Barring misguided censorship in the name of big media, the United States is still relatively free. We can and seriously should have a frank talk about the nature and extent of filtering in the United States. To suggest that Russia and China are serious alternatives, however, doesn't advance this discourse in any meaningful way.

Baidu might suck for researching the perils of tank student interactions yet you won't find a better resource for your faux holday shopping needs.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Red Flayer]

A judge ruling in favor of a company seeking to protect their trademarks is not government censorship.

That depends entirely on how the judge implements enforcement of his ruling.

A judge ruling that search engines must de-index sites offering counterfeit wares is stupid and practically unenforceable, but not censorship.

I disagree.

The search engines are publishing the existence of the counterfeit wares sites upon the request of the people using the search engines. The judge is telling the SEs that they are not allowed to report facts (that is, the existence and location of those sites).

This is censorship any way you slice it, even if you agree with the motivation of the judge.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Anonymous Coward]

They're saying that sites that traffic counterfit goods can be sued out of search engines. That's a fairly big difference. Pepsi can't sue Coke to get them out of search results.

As usual, people aren't thinking the security through. If we are going to create a new mechanism whereby judges have the capacity to censor out counterfeit traffickers, then all this work that we're going to do to, will also create a mechanism for censoring out Coke. You can say that would be an illegal use of the mechanism, but nevertheless it will exist, and therefore the Internet will need to protect against it.

BTW, another weird thing about blanket censorship like this, is that "all search engines and all social media sites" were not party to the lawsuit. At least 99% of them (probably closer to 100%) weren't served, were not represented in court, etc. Yet somehow they have a judicial order forcing them to alter their own data. Not that any of those parties (at least the big ones who got named) would really give a damn about the counterfeiter, but it's slimy (and possibly not binding) to impose on them.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[c0lo]

They're banning illegal counterfeit goods to protect consumers

Protect consumer from what? What is so dangerous in a cheap counterfeit Coco Channel purse or a Rolex replica?

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[number17]

People keep using these words but do not seem to understand what they mean.

A judge ruling in favor of a company seeking to protect their trademarks is not government censorship.

A judge ruling that search engines must de-index sites offering counterfeit wares is stupid and practically unenforceable, but not censorship.

From Mirriam-Webster
Judge: a public official authorized to decide questions brought before a court
Censor: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable
Law: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority

If the judge isn't applying the rules made by the government then whose rules are they? Seems pretty clear cut to me.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[CmdrPony]

Just who is actually in danger and need protection?

US companies, of course. Frankly, people who travel overseas will buy them at will, fully knowing they are cheap replicas. And usually they also get a good product, only without the huge profit margin to company that made it.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[cheekyjohnson]

Personally, I can't think of any.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[TheEyes]

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.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[Bob9113]

They're banning illegal counterfeit goods to protect consumers.

No they're not. The way you do that is by tracking the sales, seizing the goods, and putting the vendors in jail.

What the judge is doing is banning speech. Banning a person who should be tried and (as far as I can tell) found guilty of trafficking in illegal merchandise from speaking. But it's so easy for the government to sit on it's fat ass like Henry VIII, wave a greasy drumstick in the air, and proclaim the Internet Death Sentence. By contrast, having actual law enforcement officers tracking down actual physical crimes, then wading through the slow and expensive process of having a real trial with an actual defendant is just far too much work.

Electronic justice is like clicking through channels on teevee. You can do it while stuffing your face with bon bons. No defendant to object, no defense attorney making arguments about how various things are illegal or unconstitutional. It's so much easier, don't you see? And that's what we want -- easy pseudo-justice that favors big lobbyists. In fact, after polling all the power-brokers in the halls of Congress, a recent study found 100% agreement -- easy pseudo-justice that favors the corrupt is Good For America.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[betterunixthanunix]

I will stand up an say it: no type of content should be illegal to distribute or possess. Sorry, I know it really hurts the "think of the children" and "oh my God terrorists will know how to make nukes" crowds, but we are supposed to be the country where people are free, inclusive of being free from censorship. Once we get into the business of prosecuting people because of files on their hard drives, documents on their bookshelves, or thoughts in their minds, we cease to be a free society (so I guess we are not a free society).

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[betterunixthanunix]

your position suggests that there was leas censorship in the fifties than there is now. Obviously that isn't true

Is that obvious? True, pornography and communist literature has been legalize, but we have since made the following things illegal or have otherwise engaged in censorship:

• Child pornography (for a short period of time after pornography was legalized, it was not illegal to possess child pornography; moral arguments aside, we do censor this now, and to a much greater degree than pornography in general was censored in an earlier era)
• Information on drug production (TiHKAL an PiHKAL cost Alexander Shulgin his research license)
• Islamist literature
• Source code for algorithms that crack certain ciphers or subvert certain security systems
• Laws (yes, really, there are laws that you are not allowed to know about)

...and that only represents the list of things that immediately come to my mind. While there was quite a bit of censorship in the 1950s, I would say that we are either at the same level today, or even slightly beyond that level.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[poity]

By GP's logic then I could make the argument that the particular kind of censorship in the US that is being critiqued in this thread is also a cultural phenomenon above all else, and that it should be best approached from that perspective of non-judgmental understanding of "US culture" despite anyone's objection that the "culture" is a result of brainwashing, and that the torrent of +5 Insightful morally indignant posts we see in this thread being directed at the US is in fact a manifestation of their ignorance of US culture.

Do we want to go down that path?

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[betterunixthanunix]

My view on the child pornography issue is this: the danger lies with people who abuse children. Possessing child pornography does not prove that one is a child abuser, nor does fantasizing about child abuse. In the computer age, where data is rapidly copied between systems, distributing anything indicates nothing at all.

We live in an age of rapid, global communication -- the old economic arguments about possession fueling production simply do not apply anymore. The fact that most people find child pornography to be disgusting is no reason to make it illegal to possess. New technologies necessitate a new approach to prosecuting child molesters, and we need to make sure that we are actually prosecuting child molesters and not just picking up low-threat people who have some child porn on their hard drives (which in all likelihood was downloaded without any transaction or trade).

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[jbolden]

It is illegal to engage in trademark infringement. It is illegal to sell goods known to be infringing. Goods engaging in trademark infringement can be seized, and often are without the merchant being compensated.

It is not illegal however to publish a directory of where one can find infringing goods. That's the analogy to the listing.

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[c0lo]

A Rolex replica doesn't perform like a Rolex under real conditions. For example Rolex has fantastic quality water seals and is safe to use under high pressure diving, or in the shower (which is rare for a watch). The fakes will not hold up to that kind of use.

And this is dangerous exactly how?

It's cheap (thus won't bankrupt you and let your kids starving) and, in the greatest majority of cases, the owner knows it is replica anyway - so it may be less tempted to take a deep dive with it (how many of the replica buyers are deep divers anyway?)

Re:For non US-filtered search results

[micheas]

Historically, the US attitude towards knockoffs has been to embrace them with open arms.

In the song Yankee Doodle, Macaroni does not refer to pasta, but to an expensive Italian hat with a signature feather on it. Hence the line "...stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni"

It's interesting to watch a societies laws change as the country goes from a nation that thrives on innovation and change to one vested in the status quo that any change, no matter how much good it will be done in the long term faces huge opposition For example copyright has gone from 16 years for books and maps (newspapers, magazines, posters, paintings, fliers, and prints had no copyright protection.) to 75 plus life of the author for anything with slightest amount of creativity involved in its making.

all your bases are belong to us

[hguorbray]

but, but...we own the world...Jesus said so... and we have the debts and the enemies to prove it!

I'm just sayin

Re:all your bases are belong to us

[CmdrPony]

Yes, and at least US still has freedom of speech!

Disclaimer: Free Speech valid only in participating areas and Free Speech Zones. May be revoked at will for reasons of fear, political power, religious, ethnic or economic sensibilities. Not valid in airports or theaters. Subject to taxation and regulation. Can be exercised only with permission of media owners when applicable. Not for use afte 9:00 PM local time in town squares, plazas or Wall Street. Identification required. May not be used in the face of law enforcement. May not be used to express politically embarrassing information in wiki form in front of the world at large. Penalties will be incurred if anyone considers said free speech to be promoting of terrorism, or is considered annoying to monied interests, or is enacted by too many people in a public place. Does not apply in the context of an employer/employee relationship. Free speech may not be encrypted in certain areas; check your local laws. Subject to revocation at will by government and corporate interests. Additional fees may apply.

Re:all your bases are belong to us

[jd2112]

Free speech with the purchase of any congressman.

Re:all your bases are belong to us

[makomk]

If by "yell fire in a crowded theater" you mean "argue against conscription for a brutal and pointless war in which millions died, an obviously political form of speech" - which is what the case that phrase came from was about - then I think you'll find a lot of people do. Strange that.

Re:This just in!

[LateArthurDent]

Average person doesn't understand internet. Shocking details and film at 11.

It's a little more complicated than that. Average person doesn't understand internet, but makes decisions which require such understanding and have wide reach and consequences.

The average person doesn't understand the human body, but only surgeons get to operate on them.

Re:This just in!

[bigredradio]

I can see the headline now. Judge orders defendant to pay fine of one Internet.

This is a harbinger of SOPA

[rsborg]

See what Venkat Balasubramani says about this [1], in detail

An injunction requiring Google to "de-list" sites is one remedy which SOPA expressly makes available, and ordering the registry to transfer domain names to GoDaddy and ordering GoDaddy to update the DNS records is in effect achieving another remedy which SOPA creates. The fight against SOPA may be a red herring in some ways, since IP plaintiffs are fashioning very similar remedies in court irrespective of the legislation. Thus, even if SOPA is defeated, it may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory--opponents may win the battle but may not have gained much as a result.

[1]: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/11/court_oks_priva.htm

Ah the good ol days

[hellkyng]

I liked the days when people were afraid if they touched the computer too much it would explode, now they run crazy touching and deleting and legislating like coked out cats.

domains seized and transferred to a new registrar

[wisnoskij]

So they are taking the domains and blacklisting them.
Good luck for the next guy who buys these domains, what a way to ruin a business, buy a domain that is court ordered not to appear in any social networking or search.

Meatspace equivalent?

[brusk]

Often, when a court does something like this it's because the real world analogy makes sense, but doesn't translate well into electronic contexts. Here it seems to be the opposite: the meatspace equivalent would be to not only shut down a business that is selling counterfeit goods, but also to order that the business be delisted from the Yellow Pages, at the expense of the phone book publisher. I'm confident that this judge would not have done that, but probably imagined that the company is responsible for its presence in search engine results the way it would be responsible for buying advertising space.

US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

[cosm]

Overreach much? Here we have ICE, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, with their own squads dedicated to protecting intellectual property. I quote this straight from the horses mouth:

WASHINGTON — To mark the official beginning of the online holiday shopping season, known as Cyber Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), the Department of Justice and the FBI Washington Field Office have seized 150 website domain names that were illegally selling and distributing counterfeit merchandise.

source

Not only are there multiple alphabet soups working in collaboration on this, but taxpayer dollars, to use a talking point, tax payer dollars are being used to protect the profits of companies that a) people buying cheap counterfeits don't usually have money to buy the high dollar stuff or choose not to and b) many companies hide their profits overseas to avoid all the tax's imposed on them while simultaneously lobby congress to make import/export easier with the slave friggin labor used to make these fucking pointless articles of consumer whoredom. National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, ie, America production and creation capacity has been reduced to rubbish so we'll sue/block/censor anything that threatens the bank accounts. I'm not a 99%'er and all that jazz; this is a problem between stupid electorate continually rel-electing politicians who do not represent the people and are easily bought out. There are of course many more problems than this, but to boil it down this story is just icing on the turd-cake that will be served to future historians who write about the downfall of America.

Boggles the mind on one hand, on the other hand, well, nothing new under the sun, eh?

Re:US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

[Obfuscant]

tax payer dollars are being used to protect the profits of companies

They are also being used to protect the people who don't realize that the "Guchi" handbag they are buying isn't a real Gucci. While I would agree that someone who buys a "Guchi" bag probably ought to know better, I'd say that someone who buys a counterfeit "Gucci" has no reason to expect it to be a counterfeit and thus an expectation that they are not being ripped off. Someone who is selling counterfeit goods is banking on the name of the product and not the quality, so while the victim does get something with a "Gucci" label, the quality is not what they paid extra for.

this is a problem between stupid electorate continually rel-electing politicians who do not represent the people and are easily bought out.

I think your view is the one that isn't quite representative of the people. People who don't want to buy, e.g., Gucci, are still free to do so, and nobody is stopping them. Nobody is stopping someone from selling handbags that are quite nice but don't pretend to be Gucci. This is not an issue of stopping someone from selling a bag that looks like a Gucci but is clearly identified as not being one ("counterfeit" is not the same as "knock off".) I think most people are quite happy that someone in charge is trying to get rid of places and people that are selling counterfeit goods, and not just because those counterfeit goods harm the authentic manufacturer. They also harm the consumer, who has spent good money on a poor product, which means they aren't spending that money on anything else.

but to boil it down this story is just icing on the turd-cake that will be served to future historians who write about the downfall of America.

You have it backwards. To do nothing about counterfeit goods is antithetical to what the US is based on. To do nothing is what would help the downfall. "Property rights" is firmly established in US law and history, and is why we prospered as a nation to start with. "Here's a plot of land, homesteader, work hard and it is yours." Contrast that with "here's a community plot of land, occupant. Show up occasionally and you'll get a share of the food it produces."

"Pretend your product is made by someone else who has built a reputation for quality and profit at the expense of them and the consumer" is more like the latter than the former. I have no problem with the legal system going after counterfeiters. None at all. They have no right to use the trademarks and names of reputable companies. When I go into a restaurant and buy a "Coke", I expect that it will BE a product of the Coca Cola company, not "Bob's Coke" or even "Coak". That position doesn't have anything to do with IP or patents or copyrights, just with fraud.

Re:This just in!

[thisnamestoolong]

This is the fundamental problem -- people ought not be allowed to make wide reaching decisions about things that they don't understand. We need to figure out some sort of system by which decision-makers (judges, legislators, etc) must have a working knowledge of what they are talking about. If they can't show that they know what they are talking about, their decision doesn't count. I don't go to my doctor when my transmission is acting up, nor do I ask my mechanic about health issues. It is even more critical that politicians know what they are talking about, as they get to decide what EVERYONE is and is not allowed to do.

Huh?

[mr_lizard13]

An American, thinking that the US = The World?

What a surprise.

Always register overseas

[efalk]

This is why you never register your domain in the U.S. For maximum safety, host it overseas too. See http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-register-or-host-your-domain-in-us.html

Since when is 3/228 a good sample size?

[forkfail]

Here's the bit that gets to me:

(A recent November 14 order went after an additional 228 sites; none had a chance to contest the request until after it was approved and the names had been seized.)

How were the sites investigated? For the most recent batch of names, Chanel hired a Nevada investigator to order from three of the 228 sites in question. When the orders arrived, they were reviewed by a Chanel official and declared counterfeit. The other 225 sites were seized based on a Chanel anti-counterfeiting specialist browsing the Web.

Re:domains seized and transferred to a new registr

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be an interesting place to run a tor node or torrent site.

It can't be infringing...my site is court ordered not to appear anywhere!