Google Cache Makes Murdoch's K-12 Site Look Obscene

theodp writes "Rupert Murdoch's Amplify Education site is all about the kids, so it's understandable that the site's Terms of Use bans abusive, pornographic, obscene, and vulgar content. But if one uses Google to do a site search of Amplify.com (e.g., site:amplify.com donkey) you may get quite an unexpected eye-opener (redacted, but still NSFW). So, does someone at Amplify really want to "@&^$" your "a**"? Of course not. But this does serve as a cautionary tale of the perils of buying a second-hand domain name when pages of the shuttered site may live on in cache-land. Prior to its conversion to a site for kids' education, Amplify.com was a social sharing product that allowed users to clip favorite sites from the web and add their own commentary. Google does note that removed content may still show up in Google's search results in certain situations (removal requests can be made)." Update: 04/08 17:04 GMT by T : Stephanie Chang writes (in a comment below): "Hi, I’m the editor of Amplify.com. We purchased our domain name in February 2012 and took ownership of the site in July 2012 for use as our company's home page. Prior to that, the domain was used by its previous owners as a social-sharing site. As a result, some old content dating back to the previous domain ownership still shows up as cached on certain search engines. Amplify Education, Inc. did not produce the cached content in question nor do we in any way endorse it. We’re working with Google and other search providers to make sure caches of our site are up to date. In the meantime, we apologize to anyone whose attempts to locate information on amplifying donkeys resulted in a negative browsing experience."

Comments

Other good porn sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks! I'm looking for suggestions for other good porn sites - preferably free, although I'm not opposed to paying a little if the content is particularly high quality. Good job /.!

Re:Other good porn sites?

[SuricouRaven]

fchan or e621 :>

Re:Other good porn sites?

[RobbieThe1st]

Frigging Furries, always ruin everything!

Re:Other good porn sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Parent Up.
Furry porn is the best porn.

This seems like a Google issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not an issue with Murdoch's site. And I'm not a fan of Murdoch's media properties.

Re:This seems like a Google issue

[AK Marc]

That's why it's amusing. And how long should a cache hold an old site? You want to be able to pull it up years later, but don't want to pull it up years later. Maybe clear on transfer of ownership? But then, how can I refer to the "old" site if the cache is wiped on transfer?

So, if this is a "Google issue" then what's the solution? You'll piss off someone somewhere, no matter what you do. That's not a Google issue, that's an issue with all opinions.

Re:This seems like a Google issue

[flimflammer]

I don't think google cache should necessarily be used for looking into a websites history especially beyond an ownership change when the site is completely different. That's something for the Internet Archive project. I think people should be able to request any previously cached pages be removed (can they already? the notion of pages being removed on request was vague enough that I don't know if it's ona per-page basis or can be per site) and updated with modern content. It doesn't need to be an immediate process, just a queue that Google goes through.

Re:This seems like a Google issue

[SharpFang]

How long? "Until next page update, or as short as possible after it occurs".

Google Cache is a backup resource for the case the site is temporarily down, not a history resource to show how the site looked like before. If the site goes missing, keep until it's deemed gone permanently. But if the site changes, apply the changes and don't hoard expired pages.

What's the news here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has a cache of the old site. Big deal.

If only that was the worst thing those creeps do...

--

Brandon Downey, security expert.

Re:What's the news here?

[xclr8r]

Google's webmaster tools can limit issues like this.

Re:What's the news here?

[alphatel]

Google's webmaster tools can limit issues like this.

As can wary domain buyers who know to look at a domain's history as part of the valuation.

Murdoch's existence is obscene

[Anonymous Coward]

And his foray into education is even more so.

This is why you robots.txt after a purchase

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to establish your own site after you take it over, always throw a deny-all robots.txt to clear out it's google cache and archive.org entries for a couple of weeks

Re:This is why you robots.txt after a purchase

[c]

We're talking about Rupert Murdoch; it's a pretty solid bet that robots.txt won't be part of his solution.

Re:This is why you robots.txt after a purchase

[John Bokma]

Uhm... I think it's better to 410 (Gone) the offending URLs. Or better, if possible, redirect them to similar on-site content.

Re:This is why you robots.txt after a purchase

[mjwalshe]

This is a traditional dead tree publisher its like training cats to push jelly uphill to get things done properly at this sort of organization.

Re:This is why you robots.txt after a purchase

[Anonymous Coward]

If that actually works, that's really scary. That would mean that the Internet Archive's copy a whole website could be removed entirely just because the domain name changed ownership. There are quite a few scenario's where this is clearly unwanted, the most obvious ones being the operator of the site running out of cash and selling it, or a site a site that contains dirt on e.g. the political process that gets confiscated or pressured into removing the pages.

Obviously the cached content was not current

[gubon13]

Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to f_ck your a_s - he wants to f_ck your access to impartial press.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Frosty Piss]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god! I'm dying! I've just observed ENGLISH WORDS on the internet! Society is going to self-destruct! AAAHHH!!!!!!

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[morcego]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

The original content was redacted, so it make sense to redact the joke.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[OzPeter]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

As far as I am concerned .. an Ass is a four legged animal that is a subgenus of Equus. Now if you were talking Arse .. you'd be heading into a much darker void.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Phasma Felis]

You're new to this "humor" thing, aren't you?

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck, someone just died, quick... take it back!

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[SuricouRaven]

Different things indeed. An ass is approximately 25% larger than an arse, due to the relative size of the American posterior.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you're just a FUCKING ASS.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Someone modded this up?

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[ShaunC]

<boondock-saints>FUCK! ASS!</boondock-saints>

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[gl4ss]

oh boy if you thought all that ass porno was some stupid donkey shit then I got news for you! also you might want to get a new dictionary before joining that gay fellows association(so you at least know what you're getting into).

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[isorox]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

Between you hitting submit and slashdot entering in the database (500ms), Someone probably did die.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Different things indeed. An ass is approximately 25% larger than an arse, due to the relative size of the American posterior.

Hey, I'm an American, and I resemble that remark! (nyuck, nyuck, nyuck)

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Scarletdown]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

Ooooohhhhhh. You said the fuck word, and the ass word as well.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[master5o1]

According to Wolfram|Alpha, UK butts are 1.029 times larger than US butts.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[frozentier]

What's with the "f_ck" and "a_s"? If you thought the word and probably say the word, why not type the word?

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

That should be "F" word, "A" word, and I guess donkey is now the "D" word. Or maybe Google should be the "G" word. And for the record, no, I don't like that donkey doing that to my butt.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Barryke]

So you are saying, you are this guy in the middle: http://youtube.com/?v=g5cSg05ajuM

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Frosty Piss]

Ooooohhhhhh. You said the fuck word, and the ass word as well.

"Twat".

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to fill our youtube caches with this banal shit!

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[hairyfeet]

Probably to get around filters, I've seen a lot of filters that are just that easy to fool and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if somebody who writes prose THAT badly was stupid enough to be doing that shit at his job.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[fustakrakich]

There, no one died.

False! I bet you that more than 5,000 people died in the time it took you to write that post. The good news is that as a result of people committing 'obscenities', around 7,000 more were born.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I am concerned .. an Ass is a four legged animal that is a subgenus of Equus. Now if you were talking Arse .. you'd be heading into a much darker void.

I can tell this dude likes to party like it's 1790.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Wolfram|Alpha, UK butts are 1.029 times larger than US butts.

Thanks, I'll be moving to the UK now. (you other brothers can't deny)

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. And this is why I am completely indifferent to your donkey dick fucking my ass.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[Anonymous Coward]

Further proof that Wolfram's a fuckbag, a publicity-whore and a charlatan.

Posted AC because of the Scientology-like overview of his fanboys here.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[tehcyder]

I doubt anyone was ever conceived by a donkey dick up their arse.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[AmiMoJo]

You should be a lawyer.

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[fustakrakich]

Hmm, I can think of a politician or two...

Re:Obviously the cached content was not current

[alexo]

Fuck and Ass. There, no one died.

I beg to differ.

Reality writes a check.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, we got to educate them about the real world at some point.

And Google Street View makes me look bad...

[truedfx]

...if the previous residents of my house liked to decorate the windows with pentagrams? Or do people understand that different people live at the same address at different times?

Re:And Google Street View makes me look bad...

[mounthood]

...if the previous residents of my house liked to decorate the windows with pentagrams? Or do people understand that different people live at the same address at different times?

No, not when it comes to the internet. If hotmail.com was sold and became a p0rn site, it'd be a media apocalypse. Eventually people would understand the difference but they don't today.

What should be done, relative to the popular ignorance on this subject, is simple: the buyers of used domains should be careful to guard their reputations, allowing caches to expire, 404'ing inbound links from old affiliates, etc... A more interesting discussion would be, What technical steps should be taken when buying a used domain?

Re:And Google Street View makes me look bad...

[truedfx]

If hotmail.com was sold and became a p0rn site

If I move and don't tell anyone, people who are looking for me will continue to ring the doorbell at my old address. If I want people to be able to find me, I should let them know I am going to move. But that's not the same thing. This isn't about what will be happening on the old address, but about what has already happened on the new address.

"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

Look - I know many of you are *philosophically* opposed to copyright. Fine. Whatever.

But put that aside for a moment and take it as a given that copyright exists. I really struggle understanding how it is legal, other than 'google has expensive lawyers' that one private entity can take the contents of another website, store them, and then essentially re-publish them for money (google is largely advertiser supported, even if the adverts dont necessarily directly appear on the cached page). This is especially true when you see here that google's actions can directly reputationally harm one of those whose site is is "caching."

Really, under what theory is this remotely consistent with copyright as we understand it? It passes no test of "fair use" whatsoever.

Notice that my comments aren't in any way related to whether the google caching is useful from a user's standpoint. Of course it is or can be. But, from a copyright standpoint, I have a lot of sympathy with righsholders.

Note also that the argument that "getting your stuff copied" should be an opt-out situation (as in "well, you can always put a robots.txt" or "you can always do steps x y and z") i find weak. this is what in essence we have with the DMCA and youtube - and you see it takes all of an instant from the time that any given video is taken down to the time that it's up again in some other form Rightsholders have to have *full time* people involved in policing sites like youtube.. something just isnt right about that.

If google is indeed providing a useful service to company/site x/y/z, then company x/y/z should be able to welcome such caching by an opt-in robots.txt. the current situation, given how copyright law actually exists in most jurisdiction, is perverse.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you post a pamphlet other people can remember whats on it, or even take a picture to show people. You want your stuff public? Then you don't get absolute control.

(Forgive me if I'm feeding the trolls.)

Re:"Cache-land"

[retchdog]

It's basically equivalent to quoting a portion of a work for a book review, which is fair use. Google's profitability is irrelevant.

People should be thankful for having an opt-out robots.txt at all. It would in most cases not violate copyright for Google to ignore it completely (it might violate the site's TOS, but it is questionable whether even this holds any weight); they are just courteous enough to honor it. robots.txt is there mostly to prevent servers from being overloaded, or to keep content private, not to enforce copyright on publicly-facing content.

No one cares what you "find weak" or "struggle understanding." I'm sure there's quite a bit.

Re:"Cache-land"

[hawguy]

Note also that the argument that "getting your stuff copied" should be an opt-out situation (as in "well, you can always put a robots.txt" or "you can always do steps x y and z") i find weak. this is what in essence we have with the DMCA and youtube -

Don't post your information publicly if you don't want search engines to find it. Put it behind a password, or a paywall or some other way to protect it and search engines won't find it - no robots.txt needed.

If you're going to tape the pages of your book up in a public park, don't be surprised if some of the public write it down or take a picture of it for their own use.

and you see it takes all of an instant from the time that any given video is taken down to the time that it's up again in some other form Rightsholders have to have *full time* people involved in policing sites like youtube.. something just isnt right about that.

What's the alternative? Copyright holders have always had the burden of protecting their work. Should youtube be shut down because someone might post copyrighted content? Should theaters be shut down because someone may read a copyrighted book or play copyrighted music?

Re:"Cache-land"

[Anonymous Coward]

Linking is republishing? Bullshit. It would be easy for the "rightsholders" to remove their content from Google search -- just put up your robots.txt. They don't do this because they are *dependent* on these links. What they want is to force Google to tithe for this privilege, since they know they need it more than it needs them.

Face it concern troll, Google is doing "rightsholders" a service, not the other way around. And if that were not true, we would start seeing robots.txt instead of bleating about how we need regulatory capture.

Re:"Cache-land"

[GIL_Dude]

Rightsholders have to have *full time* people involved in policing sites like youtube.. something just isnt right about that.

Actually, they CHOOSE to have full time people do this. They also choose to have some inadequate software do it too. They don't have to do it. They have some fear (grounded or unfounded, brilliant or misguided) that "people will see our stuff and we won't profit from their eyeballs". This may be true. But it is their choice to produce stuff and their choice to limit distribution in the way that they do. If those choices then result in them choosing to try to put a genie back in a bottle and attempt technical and social engineering means to enforce artificial scarcity on the things they produce - well, that was all their choice. They don't "have to" do it.

I happen to agree with limited copyright protections (maybe 10 years, maybe 20 - there are good arguments on either side), and, as a rule, don't violate copyright and actively educate the minors in my household about respecting copyright laws. But that doesn't make me blind to the crazy choices that these distributors make in limiting distribution of content and then expecting people to not be criminals. Lots of people are criminals. Heck just look at all the red-light runners and speeders on the road. Look at all of the shoplifting that goes on. Then take copyright violation (which many people don't even consider to be immoral) and what would you expect to happen when you attempt to artificially limit the avenues by which content can be legally acquired? Yep. Violations. Lots of them. If hiring people to police web sites is the price of the business decisions they've made - well, sorry, but they made their bed. Now they get to sleep in it. And by artificially limiting distribution - here is what I mean summed up pretty well - http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Re:"Cache-land"

[fustakrakich]

Look - I know many of you *philosophically* justify copyright as something beyond a government granted privilege. Fine. Whatever.

Eh, I guess I'll leave it at that. There's just no arguing with fanaticism.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Artifakt]

"Fair use" is about the recipient (a.k.a. the user, the buyer, the reseller and such terms), and other second and possibly third parties, holding some limits on the rights holder's ability to enforce copyright under certain circumstances. Saying Google's actions pass "no test of fair use whatsoever" because they might be opposed by the rights holder, or even cause some objectively verifiable problems for the rights holder, is like saying 'innocent until proven guilty' should be abolished because it doesn't help the state get convictions.
                If your only goal is that the copyright holder be able to act without checks and balances, you've already answered the question you posed, your way. If a "user's standpoint" doesn't count from a "copyright standpoint", then the only rights left to count are the copyright holder's. You've just redefined fair use into non-existence, and moved it completey out of copyright law. For the rest of us, the user's rights are part of copyright law. People who have no philosophical opposition to copyright in general can still be opposed to taking away the checks and balances given by fair use doctrine. People who really know a bit about the law know that fair use exceptions stem from common law, including, (for the US), unchallenged English common law from pre- constitutional times, and are at least partially codified in Title 17 along with the rest of copyright law. Some of us also know about the fair use clauses in the Berne treaty. That means your "from a copyright standpoint" really means 'from a copyright standpoint, but ignoring all the common law outside that section, and all current US copyright treaties, and any references inside Title 17 I don't like'.
              I note too you put 'caching' in double quotes, so you're apparently claiming Google isn't really caching, they're really doing X and calling it caching. Saying the people you disagree with are lieing wihout actually calling it lieing is a basic dirty trick in rhetoric. Just what are you claiming it should be called instead? There are way to many people here on Slashdot that understand such tricks to let it go unchallenged. You did the same trick with "philosophically" as well.
        That's sad, because I think you have a valid point about the differences between opt-in and opt-out. Why aren't you sticking to fair methods to try and make that point?
       

Re:"Cache-land"

[Thruen]

You realize you're on Slashdot stating you think Slashdot is illegal, right? Good, now that we're through that... This isn't really a copyright issue, at all. Information was posted in a public forum, and it ended up staying public. This is like someone's kid putting an offensive sign on their lawn and someone else took a picture before they took it down. It's perfectly legal from any standpoint. As for "philosophically" being opposed to copyright, I'm not, I'm only opposed to the way the laws are currently structured and from what I've seen most people on this side of the argument are in the same boat. I write as a hobby, if I struck gold and had a book published, I should be able to keep other people from copying and redistributing that book for profit for a few years. But, my children's children should not be able to sue people for using my characters forty years after I die. Reasonable people support reasonable copyright laws. But, again, this story has nothing to do with copyright, the archived material was posted publicly, not in some members-only section. Does it make Amplify look bad? Sure. Is it Google's fault? Nope, Amplify should've implemented a decent filtration system that flags comments like that for review before making it on the site, it's not as if the technology doesn't exist.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Thruen]

To clarify, I realize I was mistaken stating Amplify should've had filters in place when they didn't run the domain at the time, I lost myself a bit in the rant, sorry. But, that doesn't change anything else I said, and doesn't alleviate Amplify of their responsibility, as it should be common practice to investigate any name you're intending to use for a product, even more so a specific domain you know has been used.

Re:"Cache-land"

[murdocj]

Posting something publicly has nothing to do with copyright. And taking a picture of something for private use has nothing to do with redistributing content.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's basically equivalent to quoting a portion of a work for a book review, which is fair use.

Except that it's not a "portion"...

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

No, it most certainly is NOT like "quoting a portion of a book for book review." It is an extraordinarily large "portion" (often the whole thing) and there is no "review."

As far as "people should be thankful.." I've covered that.

You've not made a single fucking argument. And I'm using the f word because your "basically equivalent" statement is so spectacularly weak it shows you didn't even put a second of thought into writing your post.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

"Don't post your information publicly if you don't want search engines to find it."

Irrelevant.

"Copyright holders have always had the burden of protecting their work."

Bollocks. Try opening "hawguy's house of CD-R copy musc" on a street corner The police will shut you down without any intervention from the rightsholders as you are engaging in criminal copyright infringement.

Your "should theaters" argument here is braindead. The correct question should be "should cinemas that consistently play movies that they have no rights to to paying customers be shut down?" and the answer is clearly yes.

I've read two spectacularly poor responses to my post so far. Yours was slightly less stupid than the previous one, but I nevertheless shudder of what awaits me below.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

did you even read my post?

caching is not linking, for one.

for fuck's sake these idiot ACs today.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

So, you are all for copyright as long as it has no teeth whatsoever and is just some purely symbolic aetherial concept, have I got that right? Also, you effectively favor it only for large entities that can take the time to patrol.. you know.. the whole internet.

copyright without enforcement is like talking about a god or ghost who has no effect on the real world. it's a violation of occam's razor and an absurdity.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

"Fair use" is about the recipient (a.k.a. the user, the buyer, the reseller and such terms), and other second and possibly third parties, holding some limits on therights holder's ability to enforce copyright under certain circumstances. Saying Google's actions pass "no test of fair use whatsoever" because they might be opposed by the rights holder, or even cause some objectively verifiable problems for the rights holder, is like saying 'innocent until proven guilty' should be abolished because it doesn't help the state get convictions.

There is a clear four-pronged test of what constitutes fair use in the USA. Please explain to me how google's cachng of entire websites for profit is consistent with any of these. In fact, it very much violates two of them. You've written a long paragraph based on apparently your belief that "fair use" is some abstract concept. it isn't. Read the wikipedia page or wherever you need to go to learn about Fair Use 101 and get back to me.

    If your only goal is that the copyright holder be able to act without checks and balances

I never said or insinuated anything remotely like this. Shame on you for suggesting something like this. In fact, quite the opposite--I explicitly referred to fair use, which is a "check and balance" (though that's a horrible word choice) on the use of works.

"Cacheing" in double quotes because I contend it's actually republishing, or at least that the differences between the two are negligible.

You've written a lot of legalistic sounding bullshit without actually having any real understanding of what Fair Use is, it seems.

The Berne treaty has no bearing here. I am specifically asking about the legal theory, perfesser, under which you claim it is legal for google to do what it does - republish the content of entire websites for money without the creator's permission.. inside the USA, if you prefer to keep the discussion simple.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

No, there is nothing whatsoever in my post in which I claim or insinuate that slashdot is illegal. Google republishes as much as the entirety of websites for profit and without commentary.

Read this page:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

Slashdot takes small portions of articles for the purpose of commentary, review, and education (and/or journalism). Its use generally have little to no effect upon the potential market. the amounts quoted are modest.

completely different from the google cacheing/republishing situation.

your "posted publicly" claim is bullshit. there is no theory in copyright law in which public performance, publishing, or aviailability somehow invalidate copyright. just because you hear a song on the bus doesn't mean that it's in the public domain or that you can therefore makes CDs of it and start selling it.

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

and what's more (to reply to my own post), google's profitability is FAR from irrelevant.

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

Re:"Cache-land"

[mumblestheclown]

forgive me for responding to an AC, but what an absolutely dumb response you wrote.

there are clear standards for 'fair use'. You can read about them at
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

your "you want your stuff public" argument is bullshit. everything in a bookstore, movie theater, etc is "public." This doesn't automatically give the right for others to republish those things, in their entirety, for profit, as google does. your claim of "absolute control" is bullshit. i never claimed there should be - i specifically referenced fair use, which is the mechanism by which creators and rightsholders dont have "absolute control."

However, I contend that what google is doing is pretty much as close as you get to "absolute thievery" - total republishing for money. so, this in my view is not some trivial marginal case at the limits of fair use. in many ways, as far as the sites are concerned, its probably about as infringing as you can get.

or, if not, i'd like to hear some argument why not without the special pleading legally nonsensical "you want your stuff public?" casuistic schtick.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Thruen]

I'm sorry for the confusion, but you're talking about something totally different, that has literally nothing to do with the story. This isn't even an entire page, it's exactly what you see for results in the picture, and a dead link. Go try it. Sure, from there maybe you can find the actual cached page, and you can search all you want for a legal precedent showing that Google cache (which has been going on for, what, a decade?) is actually illegal, I welcome it, but it will still have nothing to do with the story. That's why I thought you were stating Slashdot is illegal, because this story is more like finding an old Slashdot story on the same site that quotes a few lines in a forum post. As for it being posted publicly, if you can dig out the TOS for that old site and show me they can't do whatever they want with what you post, or some evidence they didn't want the PUBLIC to see their page in every form possible (even cached by Google, usually ads are intact from what I've seen) then maybe, maybe the cached page is illegal. But considering time-shifting TV shows is still happening legally, I'm not worried about time-shifting websites. But even if it is, the key thing for you to understand right now, is it will still have nothing to do with this story. This is not a copyright issue.

Re:"Cache-land"

[tehcyder]

Which fuck-knuckles modded this as a troll? A troll is not someone who says something you don't agree with. Just because most people on slashdot seem to view copyright as a worse thing than child abuse or genocide doesn't mean that there aren't arguments to be made in favour of it.

There really are some spectacularly stupid children given mod points.

Re:"Cache-land"

[tehcyder]

As for "philosophically" being opposed to copyright, I'm not, I'm only opposed to the way the laws are currently structured and from what I've seen most people on this side of the argument are in the same boat. I write as a hobby, if I struck gold and had a book published, I should be able to keep other people from copying and redistributing that book for profit for a few years. But, my children's children should not be able to sue people for using my characters forty years after I die. Reasonable people support reasonable copyright laws.

Reasonable people obey the law, and if they don't like a particular law they try to get it changed. You don't get to choose which laws you obey, that's anarchy.

Frankly, I'd be more impressed if someone objected to the idea of copyright completely, rather than using the specific terms as an excuse to flout the law.

Re:"Cache-land"

[Thruen]

Let's all pick fights over things that aren't happening! Nobody said don't respect the law, all I said was I'm opposed to the way it works now. You really are being a dick for the sole purpose of being a dick. Nobody's trying to impress you, and nobody is using anything as an excuse. You are making shit up and being an idiot, congratulations on being remarkably stupid even for the Slashdot crowd. Bravo.

Murdoch is already obscene

[Anonymous Coward]

...and so is the idea of him doing anything remotely helpful for children. Wanting to "fuck someone's ass" is nothing compared to the man himself.

Murdoch? Why not white house?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitehouse.com off limits or something? Doesn't fit the narrative/snipe I suppose.

Point of this sort of redacting?

[loufoque]

What is the point of replacing 'fucking' by 'f****ng', 'ass' by 'a**' and 'dick' by 'd**k'? In the context you can still clearly tell what the words being used are.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[femtobyte]

What's the point of complaining about the redacting? In the context you can still clearly tell what the words being used are --- unless you're that one guy who can't, who now has an intriguing motivation to learn a few more vocabulary words today.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[Anonymous Coward]

The redacting still leaves a small margin of ambiguity, that it could have been done intentionally misleadingly. I had to actually google it and see the original to be sure, which I doubt will stick around too much longer.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[femtobyte]

Please share your potentially benign, child-friendly reading within the "margin of ambiguity" of the redacted text:
"Do you like my donkey d**k f*****ng your a**? Take it TAKE THE F*****NG D**K. I am f*****ng you like a dog. YEAHHH!"
that might make you worry the phrase was taken out of context. It's one thing to worry about redacted quotes like "Politician X said: 'I will never stop fighting ... to kill ... all our children.'"; it's another to fall so far into paranoia that you fear the above phrase might be unfairly misrepresented.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[loufoque]

What worries me is this crazy american political correctness.
Think of the children! We mustn't say bad words! Instead we'll say them, but with a letter missing.
This is the stupidest thing ever devised.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[femtobyte]

A knee-jerk over-reaction to perceived "political correctness" is itself somewhat worrying.
Thing to worry about: school library removes books discussing human sexuality and reproductive health.
Thing not to worry about: a child is potentially denied the chance to see "donkey dick fucking your ass" spelled out un-redacted on a news site.
I don't think it's unreasonable for a website to respect the squeamishness of potential readers (even if they are irrational for caring about word usage), so long as this does not prevent open, honest discussion of "taboo" topics when on-topic. There is a large gray area between repressive censorship and "polite" word use; I don't buy the slippery-slope argument that self-censoring 'f**k' is tantamount to suppressing free speech any more than I buy the argument that a child who sees the word 'fuck' will be sexually traumatized.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[loufoque]

You do realize that doing this took time and energy, both of which are valuable and were wasted. Just like you're wasting my time now.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[femtobyte]

You waste your own time by reading/responding; don't blame others for your failings.

I suppose I mistakenly assumed that you were against censorship for any sort of free speech concern. Given that you want to micro-manage how others spend their own time and choose to communicate, you can't be much of an advocate for freedom. What a pity, if only Slashdot posters didn't waste all their f**king time censoring swears, they'd surely use that saved time to cure cancer! If we made 'loufoque' dictator of the universe, he'd make sure not a second was wasted on bleeping out words, so we'd have that super-productive time to read all about "donkey d**k f*****ng your a**" in un-redacted glory!

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[cwsumner]

What is the point of replacing 'fucking' by 'f****ng', 'ass' by 'a**' and 'dick' by 'd**k'? In the context you can still clearly tell what the words being used are.

Deamons (automatic programs) that trigger on the exact spelling, doing something to (needlessly?) block it.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[loufoque]

What I'm against is doing things that are clearly useless and that fail on everything they were trying to achieve.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[loufoque]

The document in question is in image.

Re:Point of this sort of redacting?

[femtobyte]

How do you know the redaction failed "everything they were trying to achieve"? If the goal of the redaction was to prevent people from being able to figure out what the words were, it obviously failed; but that (based on the obvious failure) probably wasn't the redactor's goal. If the goal was to replace some occurrences of the letters "uc", "ic", and "as" with "**" (or a gray box, in the image), it was a complete success. If the goal was to avoid offending people who, for their own idiosyncratic and possibly irrational reasons, prefer not to see swear words printed in full, then the redactor succeeded, too. If the goal was to offend folks like you (by teasingly leaving you with less "donkey dick fucking your ass" than you apparently desire), it was a success also.

And if your goal is to police how everyone else should think and feel, and insist that they take or not take offense according only to your own considerations of what is and is not efficacious, then you're as bad as the most puritanical enforcers of political correctness (who would likely argue that fully spelling out "donkey dick fucking your ass" doesn't particularly achieve any useful end either). Let your own speech be as vulgar as you want, and allow others to choose their own modes of expression (not subject to the whims of your authoritarian drive for efficiency).

Thats how searchengines work

[mjwalshe]

All search engines have to take a copy of page to run it through their ML algorithms to create the index thats used to serve a users query. And this copy is also used sometimes to generate the content in the snippet.

Re:Thats how searchengines work

[mumblestheclown]

great. but i'm not talking about the snippets. i'm talking about the mechanism in google and elsewhere where you can see essentially complete copies of the webpages. have you even read the original article? moreover, do you think i can make such a reasoned objection (which you may or may not agree with) without knowing how search engines work?

WebArchive...

[Lisias]

WebArchive could be a even serious problem here.

Google's cache are temporary. WebArchive aims to be eternal. :-)

Fake outrage.

[TapeCutter]

It's like the linking bullshit, we all know that if Murdoch wants to stop Google indexing his propaganda all he need do is fix his robots.txt. Same deal here, the process/facts are irrelevant when you are trying to paint the enemy as an irresponsible pornographer, a brazen thief, a despicable leach, or whatever bad news story he can dream up where Google are trampling all over his delicate sense of entitlement.

Mod +5 funny!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment really made me laugh. Thank you.

Wayback Machine Exclusion is Permanent

[chazchaz101]

If you add a deny all robots.txt, the domain will be permanently excluded from the archive.org wayback machine, regardless of if you change it to allow later.

Currently there is no way to exclude only a portion of a site, or to exclude archiving a site for a particular time period only.
When a URL has been excluded at direct owner request from being archived, that exclusion is retroactive and permanent.

http://archive.org/about/faqs.php#14

Re:Wayback Machine Exclusion is Permanent

[AmiMoJo]

That's probably exactly what he wants. No point letting others keep records of past bad behaviour or fickle political support that is revoked as soon as the other party gets its tongue a bit further up his arse.

Spelling, spelling, spelling

[SpaghettiPattern]

You spell "a***", not "a**". For f***'s sake, learn English!

From Amplify: Yes, it's old content in cache-land

[StephanieChang]

Hi, I’m the editor of Amplify.com. We purchased our domain name in February 2012 and took ownership of the site in July 2012 for use as our company's home page. Prior to that, the domain was used by its previous owners as a social-sharing site. As a result, some old content dating back to the previous domain ownership still shows up as cached on certain search engines. Amplify Education, Inc. did not produce the cached content in question nor do we in any way endorse it. We’re working with Google and other search providers to make sure caches of our site are up to date. In the meantime, we apologize to anyone whose attempts to locate information on amplifying donkeys resulted in a negative browsing experience.

Re:From Amplify: Yes, it's old content in cache-la

[Anonymous Coward]

And now the fun is over - all animal-related site searches at amplify.com seem to be disabled by google :(

Re:Spelling, spelling, spelling

[Anonymous Coward]

We will, as soon as someone demonstrates that Her Majesty's trivial dialect matters to anyone outside of the Airstrip One.

"resulted in a negative browsing experience"

[Anonymous Coward]

"resulted in a negative browsing experience"

Bellend