The Only People Who Benefit From This... Are consultants and hardware manufacturers.
And where do you think the lobbying for this is coming from. The rumours going around in the UK are that the plans for mass Internet surveillance here are being pushed because a few of the big arms contractors have a huge number of "black boxes" for spying on internet connections, but most dictatorships either already have them, are difficult to trade with, or have been recently overthrown, so the companies are having to go begging to 'Western' countries.
Well, that and the nanny-state types who think they'll win support and votes by throwing around the "think of the children" or "protect us from the evil terrorists" arguments.
"Who cares?" Hence I started that paragraph by noting that it is a political thing. Some people prefer more consumer protection/government regulation etc., some less. The EU is a (fairly) democratic institution (with an elected Parliament, and a Council appointed by the individually elected governments of individual Member States), and has decided to put in place these restrictions. Other countries may wish to do things differently.
To answer the other questions:
1) "Are you (the all-knowing government) going to punish all of the people who chose to use Google and give it the dominant position?" Under the relevant EU law, it is the undertaking (i.e. Google) which is punished, rather than its users. EU law tends to be purposive, and hinges on underlying principles of proportionality, so if people using Google were indirectly punished disproportionately to the benefit gained by the punishment, that would (probably) be open to appeal.
2) and 3) What if such an action caused Google such irrevocable harm that it eventually led to it going out of business? Was "justice" served? Up to definition of "eventually", then it is likely that would be a disproportionate punishment/interference, thus open to appeal etc. If "justice" wasn't served, it would be an unjust ruling, and thus (probably) illegal.
4) Or did the most dominant gang..., exercise its unjust force over a lesser gang..., crushing it? Interestingly, that is also one of the principles behind competition law; to prevent just that (and in this specific case, Google is accused of using its dominance to exercise unjust force over its competitors, crushing them). It comes down to the definition of "unjust", which is why we have specific laws, and courts, to work out whether or not something is just.
5) What's to stop the EU from systematically only targeting U.S. companies since they seem to be the ones with a lot of money? Firstly, any such targeting it would be restricted to US companies operating within the EU, but more importantly, it would probably be illegal under Article 21 (perhaps combined with Article 16) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. So, the law would stop the EU from doing that. Now, if you have a national (or in this case, international) government (so that would be both the Commission, including their staff and relevant Commissioners, the judges on the Court, the relevant national authorities and courts, and probably the Parliament) prepared to willingly, openly and repeatedly break the law, I think you have much more serious problems than a few businesses getting unjustly fined.
6) At what point does it not become completely corrupt and a scheme to steal money from the productive sector into the unproductive sector? I would suggest the point it becomes corrupt is when the law is being used or applied for an improper purpose, but now we are back into political areas of what the purpose should be.
I say it is always corrupt. In that case, I suggest either forgetting about government altogether (if it is hopelessly and indefinitely corrupt) or try to change it yourself.
Right, and that is something that Google will be arguing; that it isn't offering a dozen separate services, but one single service. The EC will be arguing the opposite. The Court will be left to decide, on all the evidence available to it, which is more likely to be the case.
Many claimed that IE was too dominant and nobody could shake that. Now look at it (and no, it didn't have anything to do with the US antitrust suit against Microsoft.
It might have something to do with the EU competition investigation against Microsoft, though, which forced MS to rework Vista (iirc) onwards so that IE wasn't a crucial component (hence MS updates have their own dialogue screen, rather than going through IE), and forced them to have add a "browser selection" screen to various versions of Windows in the EU (including ones already purchased). But yes, it probably did also have stuff to do with first Firefox, then Chrome (both with Google money behind them, iirc) being superior services.
Also, the EU doesn't care about monopolies. It is looking for "dominant positions"; in MS's case, it had a dominant position because it controlled the vast majority of the home computer OS market, and was using that to force IE (well, in the actual case it was WMP and its proprietary file-sharing protocols) on consumers. In Google's case, it is accused of abusing its dominant position in search (responsible for something like 80-90% of searches in the EU) to unfairly promote its other services over its competitors.
As for your second paragraph; that's a political thing, as to whether or not the state (or in the EU's case, the Union) should interfere, and to what degree. However, let's say you did think Google was abusing its position, unfairly, causing you (perhaps as a website operator who needed those search hits to function/generate revenue, but were being punished for not being a Google product, or Google-friendly), what are you alone going to be able to do about it? Nothing remotely effective.
Iirc their market share of searches in the EU is something like 90% (c.f. 60% in the US).
Google isn't being accused of stopping competing web services; it is being accused of using its dominance in web search to promote its *other* services, at the expense of its competitors in those other fields (such as maps, shopping, social networks etc.). That's the "abuse" part.
On the monopoly side, obviously it is trivial for an end user to simply change to a different search engine if they want to, but that's not the problem. The problem is that website operators have to make their sites Google-friendly, or they take a hit in search rankings, page views and thus revenue.
For example, a while back Google added stuff on the number of "Google +1" things webpages had to their search matrices. Pages with more +1s would be ranked higher than those without. That meant that any site not wanting to take a massive hit (as described above) had to add +1 buttons to all their content. Thus Google was able to use their dominance in search to push their social network.
Users have a choice (whether they exercise that choice is another matter; it's hard to regulate away user stupidity). Website operators don't. There is your "monopoly".
[Of course, whether Google actually has a dominant position, whether it is abusing it, whether it is doing so to the detriment of consumers are issues for the EC to investigate and argue before the Courts of Justice of the EU. Whether or not the EU should be banning this sort of abuse of a dominant position is a political issue, for each individual/state/superstate to decide for themselves.]
I.e., tell them they could be liable, and could you please stop that? Instead of the very first move being to make a massive hit on a foreign company...
Some quotes from the article (emphasis mine): "Europe's competition watchdog is considering formal proceedings against Google..." "Talks with the Internet giant about concessions it will make to settle the case are still dragging on..." "Google offered some concessions to the European Commission in July..."
This process has been going on for a couple of years now, with the EC investigating the matter, discussing things with Google (and the complainants), talking things over and so on. All they are doing now (according to the latest statement from the Commissioner) is finally considering bringing a case. They would still have to win the case to be able to fine Google. And that could take years (the MS investigation was launched in 1993, and there was another appeal judgment in June this year).
As for the Samsung verdicts; those are somewhat different due to being civil cases (brought mainly by Apple, rather than public cases brought by the EC). Out of interest, a quick check on Wikipedia suggests that the results so far are as follows:
Germany: Apple won 2 cases, Samsung won 2 more The Netherlands: Apple won initially, but it seems Samsung won on appeal England and Wales: Samsung won (pending appeal - Apple also lost its case against HTC, covering similar patents)
Australia: Apple won an interim injunction, which was overturned pending the full trial. Japan: Samsung won South Korea: Apple and Samsung both lost
Not necessarily, for two reasons. Firstly, you don't have a monopoly on a scale the EU cares about (usually cross-state, unless there's a really specific market). Secondly, you're not (on the facts) abusing that position in an anti-competitive way.
In Google's case, the EC is arguing (or has found, can't remember what stage this is at and can't be bothered to RTFA, but did participate a lively discussion at the UK Parliament over this issue, and chatted with one of the people involved in the original complaint) that Google:
(a) has a dominant position in the search engine market in the EU (something like 90%; far higher than in the US, iirc).
(b) has abused this position to promote its other services (such as maps, shopping, videos etc.) by using a separate algorithm for ranking *its* services over other ones.
Thus you have an abuse of a dominant position, contrary to EU Competition law (assuming that the abuse is causing a negative effect on consumers; I have a feeling the EC's case might fall down there).
That's not US, that's everyone in the world. Just try going to Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Korea or any place you are not a citizen of and try to vote.
Just to add another counter-example, in UK Parliamentary elections, you can vote if you are a British Citizen or an Irish (Republic) or Commonwealth citizen living (legally) in the UK (and not disqualified from voting for legal reasons, e.g. due to being in prison, or a peer).
Local and EU elections are open to British, Irish or Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, and any other EU citizens who are living in the UK and have jumped through appropriate extra hoops.
So yes, some countries do things differently. And, for the record, no one in an EU country is "ruled by [their] own people", as we are all jointly ruled by local, national and international governments.
As for Huns and the Roman Empire, key word there is "Empire". As in, it had an Emperor; a hereditary, supreme leader, answerable constitutionally to no one. Although that's not to say that the empire didn't have democratic elements (mostly leftover from the Roman Republic), but it was fundamentally autocratic.
I have to show my ID to board an airplane, but not when I vote?
Last time I checked, only one of these was a fundamental and integral part of living in a democracy. That is, something which should have as few barriers to it as possible.
I disagree with excessive use of ID to board aeroplanes as well, but I really hope you can see the major difference between these two things, and the underlying function they perform.
The UK isn't really a jurisdiction (it's 3). And they're not so much "squatters' rights" as "things are legal unless expressly illegal". There aren't any specific "squatters' rights", although there is the issue of adverse possession (see below). In this case, it would still be trespass, but not automatically a crime (if no damage is done) and if there wasn't any squatting.
In England, squatting in a building being used as a dwelling has been a crime since at least the 70s. Due to issues of squatters in people's second/third homes, or unoccupied homes owned by property developers, there was a campaign to extend this to any residential home, and the new offence became law on 1st September 2012.
In theory, on unregistered land, squatters can get the title to the land revoked if they live there, in possession, for 12 years. In registered land (which most land is now, iirc), they have to wait 10 years, then apply for title, and the registered owner must be notified and can block with a simple objection.
In English law this idea is (sometimes) known as the "Red Hand Rule" (you can see some details here). Basically, the more unreasonable a term in a contract is, the more attention must be drawn to it for it to have been successfully incorporated in to the contract. The US way seems to be to use capitals and underlining, the UK way (traditionally) was to use red ink, or have a big red hand pointing it out (as demonstrated in that article).
So yes, being in capitals *could* make something more likely to be legally binding, or rather, less likely to be struck out as not being incorporated due to being unreasonable (in jurisdictions where that can happen).
Then it is pure coincidence that the prescriptions to remedy the "problem" just happen to be exactly the anti-capitalist ones the left has been pushing for the past couple generations?
Of course it isn't a coincidence. The parent said this:
The public policy positions of the left are tied to the science issues.
i.e. the science issues exist, and the public policy people on the left are picking it up and pushing it. Given that the proposed solutions are generally left-wing ones (due to involving some interference with business), is it any wonder that left-wing political groups will pick up the science? Of course there is a causal link, but the parent's point was that it goes the other way. The political issues is caused by the scientific one (and it being a convenient argument for them), not the other way around.
FWIW, Pogue's column in the latest Scientific American claims that of the 10 most pirated movies over the internet, none are out there for legal rent or purchase.
As noted above, that is legal rent or purchase "online"; i.e. for download or streaming. If you have a look at the weekly top 10 (TorrentFreak publishes a useful list), usually 8 or 9 of them will be DVD or BluRay releases, so ripped from a legal release (although possibly not a Region 1 one). The other two tend to be cams or screeners, so are pre-release or recent-release.
Basically any political ideology fits all 3 of those criteria, yet it is not considered silly to take up such an affiliation.
Which, arguably, is what is wrong in politics in may places. Decisions are made based on political ideology in ignorance of (or despite) evidence. Policies are made, then some evidence is found to justify it, rather than the other way around. And then people vote based on those justifications and spin, rather than on actual evidence.
Not to start a gigantic flame war, but it has LONG been an argument that things we regard as "constants" may not in fact be constant.
The Hubble Constant would seem to be a good example of this; while many people assumed that it was actually a constant, the underlying theories only require that it be constant in space (not in time), and when you mess around with other theories time-dependence makes quite a bit of sense (and helps fill in some gaps).
Of course, this case is slightly different; the suggested correlation (silly/. headline inferring causation) goes against existing theories. And looking at the data a bit more closely, one has to wonder how good a correlation that actually is, and how big a variation (taking into account the errors). This is definitely one of those "more data needed" situations. If true (and someone can come up with a theory as to *why* - which is the important part) this could be really interesting.
Obviously, scientists should never ridicule science that is either backed by verifiable evidence or theory, but such dramatic new suggestions may require more careful study than otherwise. I'm reminded of that recent fuss about faster-than-light neutrinos; either a huge chunk of existing theory was wrong, or someone had screwed up their measurements... and unsurprisingly, it turned out to be the latter.
That said, ridiculing (most) religion is perfectly acceptable; there you tend to have both a lack of a consistent theory and a lack of verifiable evidence. And on top of that you're supposed to make major life choices based on it... how is that *not* silly?
[Disclaimer: It has been a few years since I studied cosmology, so I may be completely wrong wrt that stuff about Hubble.]
Without much digging, here's a gallup poll on the issue from 2010 (Americans like polls, yes, despite their massive flaws?). 40% believing in "strict creationism" (that's "God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago"), 38% for "God-guided evolution" and a mere 16% for God-less (but not necessarily atheistic) evolution.
So if you include the second option as "creationism", that's 78% and a clear majority. Even going with strict creationism, that's more than any of the other options. Based on that I think "most Americans" is a valid claim.
The education table is quite an interesting one; the difference in "strict creationist" believer; those with no college education at 47%, those with postgraduate education at 22%, whereas the "God-less evolution" goes from 9% to 25%.
The politics comparison is also interesting; for strict creationism you have 34% D, 52% R (and with independents never more than 1% away from the Ds).
If Links to content are infringement then I can sue them for linking to me, you can sue me for linking to slanderous content about you, everyone can sue the pants off Google.
Basically, yes.
However, as with most legal things, it is considerably more complex.
I know of no English law case where a link was held to be an infringement of copyright in itself. There are textbooks suggesting it could be, and there's an obscure 90s Scottish, first-instance case using an older version of the law (about as non-binding a case as you can get) that says it might be, but otherwise we have a vague law (mostly written pre-web), and no application. So no one really knows. This creates enough uncertainty that those with the scariest lawyers can pretend the law says what they want it to say - hence FACT Ltd.
Of course, copyright infringement doesn't just cover the act of copying (or communicating to the public etc.), under English law (where FACT tends to operate) it also covers anyone "authorising" that act, or through the normal common law principles of joint tortfeasance (i.e. you are somehow involved in another's tort so we'll blame you for it as well). This is how the English courts ruled against the operators of The Pirate Bay (although no one was there to argue the other side) - they were not actually doing any infringing acts, but were authorising them (by setting up the site the way it is) and were working to a common purpose with the users. So in that sense, linking may be enough if there is that extra bit of authorising or a common purpose.
In terms of Google and so on, a few years ago people in power realised how stupid this could be so introduced various limitations on this sort of liability; in the EU, they come from the E-Commerce Directive (which has limitations for "mere conduits", "hosts" and "caches"), in the US iirc it comes via the DMCA (the very small good part of that Act). Some of these are absolute defences (i.e. if you are just providing an intermediary service, you are untouchable, in theory), others can be defeated by knowledge (i.e. if you know content is infringing, you can't keep hosting it while relying on that limitations).
But FACT don't really care about the law; in their last case they didn't even try to use copyright law, but twisted an old conspiracy law to work. And still needed to twist some of the facts in order to distinguish earlier cases that went the other way. By my reading of the facts in the UKNova case, UKNova may well be legal (FACT doesn't care; they are on a crusade against websites which don't pay their masters). But then again, it might not be.
As with all common law, no one knows what the law says until it is tested in a high enough court. So far in England, there have been a few low-level criminal cases on linking (current score 2-2 for it being legal), a few higher level (but questionable) civil cases (2-1 for it being illegal), but nothing higher. That should change in the next couple of years with various appeals going through (including a big Supreme Court case at some point in the next few months which could really clear up this area of law... if the judges are on top of things and don't dodge the questions).
So why not scrap the traditional jury system, have courts decide the outcome of cases, but then grab 12 (or 9, or however many) random people and ask them whether they think particular laws are just?
Or, you could have a big popularity contest every few years to decide who gets to write the laws, on the understanding that they will repeal the bad laws.
Yes, jury nullification is important, but it still kind of comes down to reverse-vigilantism; a random group of people deciding that someone isn't a criminal, even though the law says they are.
Maybe it is important enough to risk screwing up all sorts of other cases, but personally I think that if you have enough instances of jury nullification for it to be significant, the solution should be to fix the law-making process, rather than having to keep relying on reasonable juries.
I recommend reading this post discussing possible ways for Assange to get out of the Ecuadorian embassy, starting at "So – can he?"
As usual when law (and especially international law) is involved, it is far more complicated than it seems. Also, England isn't really a country - it would be the UK invading Ecuador.
The "he hasn't been charged" by the Swedish thing, while true, isn't really relevant. It's due to the way the Swedish prosecution process differs from the UK and US ones (among others - and is, in some ways, far more sensible). Basically, they want to try and charge him, but first they have to have a formal interview, which (in almost all cases) has to happen with him in Swedish custody.
But that's not the point. Right now he is a fugitive, on the run from the UK authorities having skipped his bail. I'm no expert on bail law, but I'm pretty certain the UK could lock him up for a while for that, never mind arresting him (which they can do anyway, due to the valid European Arrest Warrant).
According to the English Courts, the allegation is that he had sex with a woman "improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state" (see paragraph 3.4 of this).
You do not need a contract to have sex in Sweden, consent to sex is not required to be in the form of a verbal or written contract.
Consent can be implied, of course (as an aside, in some jurisdictions, contracts can also be implied by conduct and so on... but that's another issue). The point here is that while there was consent to do some things, at some times, the prosecutor is arguing (based on the facts available) that there wasn't or couldn't have been consent to certain specific acts.
Having sex with someone at one point doesn't give them permission to do so later, whenever they like, however they like...
"The women appealed to have the charges reinstated." After the second prosecutor convinced them to.
Last time I checked, in most criminal legal systems, prosecutors decided whether or not to prosecute, not alleged victims. Also, there aren't any charges yet... (I thought most Assange supporters knew that?)
As for your three pieces of evidence, 1 may call into question one of the girl's reliability as a witness (if she ever gets called as a witness, i.e. if this ever goes to trial), 2 raises issues of consent, but again an issue for trial, and 3 is kind of irrelevant (if true) to whether or not Assange broke the law.
From now on, before I fuck a chick, I'm getting a written, notarized contract specifying exactly the hours, place, and methods permitted...
When I started learning about sexual offences and this area of law (and read some of the cases on it) that was pretty much my conclusion. Avoids any kind of doubt (provided terms are defined clearly enough).
Also, being gay probably won't help you as in many jurisdictions men can be raped as well...
And that the women had lunch with him the next day and didn't press charges until the two of them met, and apparently decided after swapping stories that what had actually happened was rape.
Actually... not immediately complaining is fairly common in rape cases. Myth 10 in the CPS's list of rape myths might be worth a mention here, and some of the others are worth reading.
From their testimony, it seems that one of them wanted to complain but wasn't sure how to, and trying to find out, managed to get in touch with the other, who accompanied her to the police station. I doubt whether either of them thought it was rape, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is what he is accused of, and whether that amounts to rape.
It's shady, but for some reason, courts keep finding that it isn't shady enough to dismiss outright. Perhaps the situation isn't as shady as it has been made out, or maybe all these judges have been bought off.
And yes, he is accused of rape. Not "rape", not even "Swedish rape", but actual rape. "Failing to use a condom" is something of a simplification. The rape allegation concerns having sex with someone who was allegedly asleep at the time, without a condom, knowing full well that she wouldn't have consented to it based on previous incidents. Which part of that doesn't sound like rape?
One of the sexual molestation (or sexual assault) accusations involves allegedly ripping a condom during sex. The other involves him allegedly taking some of his clothes off and rubbing himself against the woman, again knowing that she didn't want to have any sort of sexual contact with him. The final count involves forcibly holding someone down and trying to have sex with them when they didn't want to (due to the lack of a condom).
Now... maybe the allegations aren't true, maybe there's evidence against it and so on, but that doesn't matter at this point (as those are issues for trial). He is accused of a fairly serious set of criminal offences, he is wanted for prosecution of those offences.
Slashdot Mirror
And where do you think the lobbying for this is coming from. The rumours going around in the UK are that the plans for mass Internet surveillance here are being pushed because a few of the big arms contractors have a huge number of "black boxes" for spying on internet connections, but most dictatorships either already have them, are difficult to trade with, or have been recently overthrown, so the companies are having to go begging to 'Western' countries.
Well, that and the nanny-state types who think they'll win support and votes by throwing around the "think of the children" or "protect us from the evil terrorists" arguments.
"Who cares?"
Hence I started that paragraph by noting that it is a political thing. Some people prefer more consumer protection/government regulation etc., some less. The EU is a (fairly) democratic institution (with an elected Parliament, and a Council appointed by the individually elected governments of individual Member States), and has decided to put in place these restrictions. Other countries may wish to do things differently.
To answer the other questions:
1) "Are you (the all-knowing government) going to punish all of the people who chose to use Google and give it the dominant position?"
Under the relevant EU law, it is the undertaking (i.e. Google) which is punished, rather than its users. EU law tends to be purposive, and hinges on underlying principles of proportionality, so if people using Google were indirectly punished disproportionately to the benefit gained by the punishment, that would (probably) be open to appeal.
2) and 3) What if such an action caused Google such irrevocable harm that it eventually led to it going out of business? Was "justice" served?
Up to definition of "eventually", then it is likely that would be a disproportionate punishment/interference, thus open to appeal etc. If "justice" wasn't served, it would be an unjust ruling, and thus (probably) illegal.
4) Or did the most dominant gang..., exercise its unjust force over a lesser gang..., crushing it?
Interestingly, that is also one of the principles behind competition law; to prevent just that (and in this specific case, Google is accused of using its dominance to exercise unjust force over its competitors, crushing them). It comes down to the definition of "unjust", which is why we have specific laws, and courts, to work out whether or not something is just.
5) What's to stop the EU from systematically only targeting U.S. companies since they seem to be the ones with a lot of money?
Firstly, any such targeting it would be restricted to US companies operating within the EU, but more importantly, it would probably be illegal under Article 21 (perhaps combined with Article 16) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. So, the law would stop the EU from doing that. Now, if you have a national (or in this case, international) government (so that would be both the Commission, including their staff and relevant Commissioners, the judges on the Court, the relevant national authorities and courts, and probably the Parliament) prepared to willingly, openly and repeatedly break the law, I think you have much more serious problems than a few businesses getting unjustly fined.
6) At what point does it not become completely corrupt and a scheme to steal money from the productive sector into the unproductive sector?
I would suggest the point it becomes corrupt is when the law is being used or applied for an improper purpose, but now we are back into political areas of what the purpose should be.
I say it is always corrupt.
In that case, I suggest either forgetting about government altogether (if it is hopelessly and indefinitely corrupt) or try to change it yourself.
Right, and that is something that Google will be arguing; that it isn't offering a dozen separate services, but one single service. The EC will be arguing the opposite. The Court will be left to decide, on all the evidence available to it, which is more likely to be the case.
It might have something to do with the EU competition investigation against Microsoft, though, which forced MS to rework Vista (iirc) onwards so that IE wasn't a crucial component (hence MS updates have their own dialogue screen, rather than going through IE), and forced them to have add a "browser selection" screen to various versions of Windows in the EU (including ones already purchased). But yes, it probably did also have stuff to do with first Firefox, then Chrome (both with Google money behind them, iirc) being superior services.
Also, the EU doesn't care about monopolies. It is looking for "dominant positions"; in MS's case, it had a dominant position because it controlled the vast majority of the home computer OS market, and was using that to force IE (well, in the actual case it was WMP and its proprietary file-sharing protocols) on consumers. In Google's case, it is accused of abusing its dominant position in search (responsible for something like 80-90% of searches in the EU) to unfairly promote its other services over its competitors.
As for your second paragraph; that's a political thing, as to whether or not the state (or in the EU's case, the Union) should interfere, and to what degree. However, let's say you did think Google was abusing its position, unfairly, causing you (perhaps as a website operator who needed those search hits to function/generate revenue, but were being punished for not being a Google product, or Google-friendly), what are you alone going to be able to do about it? Nothing remotely effective.
Iirc their market share of searches in the EU is something like 90% (c.f. 60% in the US).
Google isn't being accused of stopping competing web services; it is being accused of using its dominance in web search to promote its *other* services, at the expense of its competitors in those other fields (such as maps, shopping, social networks etc.). That's the "abuse" part.
On the monopoly side, obviously it is trivial for an end user to simply change to a different search engine if they want to, but that's not the problem. The problem is that website operators have to make their sites Google-friendly, or they take a hit in search rankings, page views and thus revenue.
For example, a while back Google added stuff on the number of "Google +1" things webpages had to their search matrices. Pages with more +1s would be ranked higher than those without. That meant that any site not wanting to take a massive hit (as described above) had to add +1 buttons to all their content. Thus Google was able to use their dominance in search to push their social network.
Users have a choice (whether they exercise that choice is another matter; it's hard to regulate away user stupidity). Website operators don't. There is your "monopoly".
[Of course, whether Google actually has a dominant position, whether it is abusing it, whether it is doing so to the detriment of consumers are issues for the EC to investigate and argue before the Courts of Justice of the EU. Whether or not the EU should be banning this sort of abuse of a dominant position is a political issue, for each individual/state/superstate to decide for themselves.]
Some quotes from the article (emphasis mine):
"Europe's competition watchdog is considering formal proceedings against Google..."
"Talks with the Internet giant about concessions it will make to settle the case are still dragging on..."
"Google offered some concessions to the European Commission in July..."
This process has been going on for a couple of years now, with the EC investigating the matter, discussing things with Google (and the complainants), talking things over and so on. All they are doing now (according to the latest statement from the Commissioner) is finally considering bringing a case. They would still have to win the case to be able to fine Google. And that could take years (the MS investigation was launched in 1993, and there was another appeal judgment in June this year).
As for the Samsung verdicts; those are somewhat different due to being civil cases (brought mainly by Apple, rather than public cases brought by the EC). Out of interest, a quick check on Wikipedia suggests that the results so far are as follows:
Germany: Apple won 2 cases, Samsung won 2 more
The Netherlands: Apple won initially, but it seems Samsung won on appeal
England and Wales: Samsung won (pending appeal - Apple also lost its case against HTC, covering similar patents)
Australia: Apple won an interim injunction, which was overturned pending the full trial.
Japan: Samsung won
South Korea: Apple and Samsung both lost
Not necessarily, for two reasons.
Firstly, you don't have a monopoly on a scale the EU cares about (usually cross-state, unless there's a really specific market).
Secondly, you're not (on the facts) abusing that position in an anti-competitive way.
In Google's case, the EC is arguing (or has found, can't remember what stage this is at and can't be bothered to RTFA, but did participate a lively discussion at the UK Parliament over this issue, and chatted with one of the people involved in the original complaint) that Google:
(a) has a dominant position in the search engine market in the EU (something like 90%; far higher than in the US, iirc).
(b) has abused this position to promote its other services (such as maps, shopping, videos etc.) by using a separate algorithm for ranking *its* services over other ones.
Thus you have an abuse of a dominant position, contrary to EU Competition law (assuming that the abuse is causing a negative effect on consumers; I have a feeling the EC's case might fall down there).
Whether or not the EC is right is another matter.
That's not US, that's everyone in the world. Just try going to Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Korea or any place you are not a citizen of and try to vote.
Just to add another counter-example, in UK Parliamentary elections, you can vote if you are a British Citizen or an Irish (Republic) or Commonwealth citizen living (legally) in the UK (and not disqualified from voting for legal reasons, e.g. due to being in prison, or a peer).
Local and EU elections are open to British, Irish or Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, and any other EU citizens who are living in the UK and have jumped through appropriate extra hoops.
So yes, some countries do things differently. And, for the record, no one in an EU country is "ruled by [their] own people", as we are all jointly ruled by local, national and international governments.
As for Huns and the Roman Empire, key word there is "Empire". As in, it had an Emperor; a hereditary, supreme leader, answerable constitutionally to no one. Although that's not to say that the empire didn't have democratic elements (mostly leftover from the Roman Republic), but it was fundamentally autocratic.
I have to show my ID to board an airplane, but not when I vote?
Last time I checked, only one of these was a fundamental and integral part of living in a democracy. That is, something which should have as few barriers to it as possible.
I disagree with excessive use of ID to board aeroplanes as well, but I really hope you can see the major difference between these two things, and the underlying function they perform.
The UK isn't really a jurisdiction (it's 3). And they're not so much "squatters' rights" as "things are legal unless expressly illegal". There aren't any specific "squatters' rights", although there is the issue of adverse possession (see below). In this case, it would still be trespass, but not automatically a crime (if no damage is done) and if there wasn't any squatting.
In England, squatting in a building being used as a dwelling has been a crime since at least the 70s. Due to issues of squatters in people's second/third homes, or unoccupied homes owned by property developers, there was a campaign to extend this to any residential home, and the new offence became law on 1st September 2012.
In theory, on unregistered land, squatters can get the title to the land revoked if they live there, in possession, for 12 years. In registered land (which most land is now, iirc), they have to wait 10 years, then apply for title, and the registered owner must be notified and can block with a simple objection.
In English law this idea is (sometimes) known as the "Red Hand Rule" (you can see some details here). Basically, the more unreasonable a term in a contract is, the more attention must be drawn to it for it to have been successfully incorporated in to the contract. The US way seems to be to use capitals and underlining, the UK way (traditionally) was to use red ink, or have a big red hand pointing it out (as demonstrated in that article).
So yes, being in capitals *could* make something more likely to be legally binding, or rather, less likely to be struck out as not being incorporated due to being unreasonable (in jurisdictions where that can happen).
But I am not a contract lawyer (yet).
Of course it isn't a coincidence. The parent said this:
i.e. the science issues exist, and the public policy people on the left are picking it up and pushing it. Given that the proposed solutions are generally left-wing ones (due to involving some interference with business), is it any wonder that left-wing political groups will pick up the science? Of course there is a causal link, but the parent's point was that it goes the other way. The political issues is caused by the scientific one (and it being a convenient argument for them), not the other way around.
FWIW, Pogue's column in the latest Scientific American claims that of the 10 most pirated movies over the internet, none are out there for legal rent or purchase.
As noted above, that is legal rent or purchase "online"; i.e. for download or streaming. If you have a look at the weekly top 10 (TorrentFreak publishes a useful list), usually 8 or 9 of them will be DVD or BluRay releases, so ripped from a legal release (although possibly not a Region 1 one). The other two tend to be cams or screeners, so are pre-release or recent-release.
Basically any political ideology fits all 3 of those criteria, yet it is not considered silly to take up such an affiliation.
Which, arguably, is what is wrong in politics in may places. Decisions are made based on political ideology in ignorance of (or despite) evidence. Policies are made, then some evidence is found to justify it, rather than the other way around. And then people vote based on those justifications and spin, rather than on actual evidence.
Not to start a gigantic flame war, but it has LONG been an argument that things we regard as "constants" may not in fact be constant.
The Hubble Constant would seem to be a good example of this; while many people assumed that it was actually a constant, the underlying theories only require that it be constant in space (not in time), and when you mess around with other theories time-dependence makes quite a bit of sense (and helps fill in some gaps).
Of course, this case is slightly different; the suggested correlation (silly /. headline inferring causation) goes against existing theories. And looking at the data a bit more closely, one has to wonder how good a correlation that actually is, and how big a variation (taking into account the errors). This is definitely one of those "more data needed" situations. If true (and someone can come up with a theory as to *why* - which is the important part) this could be really interesting.
Obviously, scientists should never ridicule science that is either backed by verifiable evidence or theory, but such dramatic new suggestions may require more careful study than otherwise. I'm reminded of that recent fuss about faster-than-light neutrinos; either a huge chunk of existing theory was wrong, or someone had screwed up their measurements... and unsurprisingly, it turned out to be the latter.
That said, ridiculing (most) religion is perfectly acceptable; there you tend to have both a lack of a consistent theory and a lack of verifiable evidence. And on top of that you're supposed to make major life choices based on it... how is that *not* silly?
[Disclaimer: It has been a few years since I studied cosmology, so I may be completely wrong wrt that stuff about Hubble.]
Without much digging, here's a gallup poll on the issue from 2010 (Americans like polls, yes, despite their massive flaws?). 40% believing in "strict creationism" (that's "God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago"), 38% for "God-guided evolution" and a mere 16% for God-less (but not necessarily atheistic) evolution.
So if you include the second option as "creationism", that's 78% and a clear majority. Even going with strict creationism, that's more than any of the other options. Based on that I think "most Americans" is a valid claim.
The education table is quite an interesting one; the difference in "strict creationist" believer; those with no college education at 47%, those with postgraduate education at 22%, whereas the "God-less evolution" goes from 9% to 25%.
The politics comparison is also interesting; for strict creationism you have 34% D, 52% R (and with independents never more than 1% away from the Ds).
If Links to content are infringement then I can sue them for linking to me, you can sue me for linking to slanderous content about you, everyone can sue the pants off Google.
Basically, yes.
However, as with most legal things, it is considerably more complex.
I know of no English law case where a link was held to be an infringement of copyright in itself. There are textbooks suggesting it could be, and there's an obscure 90s Scottish, first-instance case using an older version of the law (about as non-binding a case as you can get) that says it might be, but otherwise we have a vague law (mostly written pre-web), and no application. So no one really knows. This creates enough uncertainty that those with the scariest lawyers can pretend the law says what they want it to say - hence FACT Ltd.
Of course, copyright infringement doesn't just cover the act of copying (or communicating to the public etc.), under English law (where FACT tends to operate) it also covers anyone "authorising" that act, or through the normal common law principles of joint tortfeasance (i.e. you are somehow involved in another's tort so we'll blame you for it as well). This is how the English courts ruled against the operators of The Pirate Bay (although no one was there to argue the other side) - they were not actually doing any infringing acts, but were authorising them (by setting up the site the way it is) and were working to a common purpose with the users. So in that sense, linking may be enough if there is that extra bit of authorising or a common purpose.
In terms of Google and so on, a few years ago people in power realised how stupid this could be so introduced various limitations on this sort of liability; in the EU, they come from the E-Commerce Directive (which has limitations for "mere conduits", "hosts" and "caches"), in the US iirc it comes via the DMCA (the very small good part of that Act). Some of these are absolute defences (i.e. if you are just providing an intermediary service, you are untouchable, in theory), others can be defeated by knowledge (i.e. if you know content is infringing, you can't keep hosting it while relying on that limitations).
But FACT don't really care about the law; in their last case they didn't even try to use copyright law, but twisted an old conspiracy law to work. And still needed to twist some of the facts in order to distinguish earlier cases that went the other way. By my reading of the facts in the UKNova case, UKNova may well be legal (FACT doesn't care; they are on a crusade against websites which don't pay their masters). But then again, it might not be.
As with all common law, no one knows what the law says until it is tested in a high enough court. So far in England, there have been a few low-level criminal cases on linking (current score 2-2 for it being legal), a few higher level (but questionable) civil cases (2-1 for it being illegal), but nothing higher. That should change in the next couple of years with various appeals going through (including a big Supreme Court case at some point in the next few months which could really clear up this area of law... if the judges are on top of things and don't dodge the questions).
So why not scrap the traditional jury system, have courts decide the outcome of cases, but then grab 12 (or 9, or however many) random people and ask them whether they think particular laws are just?
Or, you could have a big popularity contest every few years to decide who gets to write the laws, on the understanding that they will repeal the bad laws.
Yes, jury nullification is important, but it still kind of comes down to reverse-vigilantism; a random group of people deciding that someone isn't a criminal, even though the law says they are.
Maybe it is important enough to risk screwing up all sorts of other cases, but personally I think that if you have enough instances of jury nullification for it to be significant, the solution should be to fix the law-making process, rather than having to keep relying on reasonable juries.
But that's just my £0.013
I recommend reading this post discussing possible ways for Assange to get out of the Ecuadorian embassy, starting at "So – can he?"
As usual when law (and especially international law) is involved, it is far more complicated than it seems. Also, England isn't really a country - it would be the UK invading Ecuador.
The "he hasn't been charged" by the Swedish thing, while true, isn't really relevant. It's due to the way the Swedish prosecution process differs from the UK and US ones (among others - and is, in some ways, far more sensible). Basically, they want to try and charge him, but first they have to have a formal interview, which (in almost all cases) has to happen with him in Swedish custody.
But that's not the point. Right now he is a fugitive, on the run from the UK authorities having skipped his bail. I'm no expert on bail law, but I'm pretty certain the UK could lock him up for a while for that, never mind arresting him (which they can do anyway, due to the valid European Arrest Warrant).
According to the English Courts, the allegation is that he had sex with a woman "improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state" (see paragraph 3.4 of this).
You do not need a contract to have sex in Sweden, consent to sex is not required to be in the form of a verbal or written contract.
Consent can be implied, of course (as an aside, in some jurisdictions, contracts can also be implied by conduct and so on... but that's another issue). The point here is that while there was consent to do some things, at some times, the prosecutor is arguing (based on the facts available) that there wasn't or couldn't have been consent to certain specific acts.
Having sex with someone at one point doesn't give them permission to do so later, whenever they like, however they like...
"The women appealed to have the charges reinstated."
After the second prosecutor convinced them to.
Last time I checked, in most criminal legal systems, prosecutors decided whether or not to prosecute, not alleged victims. Also, there aren't any charges yet... (I thought most Assange supporters knew that?)
As for your three pieces of evidence, 1 may call into question one of the girl's reliability as a witness (if she ever gets called as a witness, i.e. if this ever goes to trial), 2 raises issues of consent, but again an issue for trial, and 3 is kind of irrelevant (if true) to whether or not Assange broke the law.
From now on, before I fuck a chick, I'm getting a written, notarized contract specifying exactly the hours, place, and methods permitted...
When I started learning about sexual offences and this area of law (and read some of the cases on it) that was pretty much my conclusion. Avoids any kind of doubt (provided terms are defined clearly enough).
Also, being gay probably won't help you as in many jurisdictions men can be raped as well...
And that the women had lunch with him the next day and didn't press charges until the two of them met, and apparently decided after swapping stories that what had actually happened was rape.
Actually... not immediately complaining is fairly common in rape cases. Myth 10 in the CPS's list of rape myths might be worth a mention here, and some of the others are worth reading.
From their testimony, it seems that one of them wanted to complain but wasn't sure how to, and trying to find out, managed to get in touch with the other, who accompanied her to the police station. I doubt whether either of them thought it was rape, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is what he is accused of, and whether that amounts to rape.
It's shady, but for some reason, courts keep finding that it isn't shady enough to dismiss outright. Perhaps the situation isn't as shady as it has been made out, or maybe all these judges have been bought off.
And yes, he is accused of rape. Not "rape", not even "Swedish rape", but actual rape. "Failing to use a condom" is something of a simplification. The rape allegation concerns having sex with someone who was allegedly asleep at the time, without a condom, knowing full well that she wouldn't have consented to it based on previous incidents. Which part of that doesn't sound like rape?
One of the sexual molestation (or sexual assault) accusations involves allegedly ripping a condom during sex. The other involves him allegedly taking some of his clothes off and rubbing himself against the woman, again knowing that she didn't want to have any sort of sexual contact with him. The final count involves forcibly holding someone down and trying to have sex with them when they didn't want to (due to the lack of a condom).
Now... maybe the allegations aren't true, maybe there's evidence against it and so on, but that doesn't matter at this point (as those are issues for trial). He is accused of a fairly serious set of criminal offences, he is wanted for prosecution of those offences.
If you want some sources, this is an old article looking into the initial allegations, or you could just read the English High Court judgment.