Belgian Newspapers Delisted On Google 385
D H NG writes "After being ordered by the Belgian courts to 'remove from its Google.be and Google.com sites, and in particular, cached links visible on Google Web and the Google News service, all articles, photographs and graphics of daily newspapers published in French and German by Belgian publishers,' Google had removed all traces of the newspapers in question from all its search services. The newspapers, however, are crying foul, and alleged that it was done in retaliation for being sued for copyright violations."
They got what they asked for, not what they wanted (Score:5, Interesting)
Google doesn't want to have to deal with another lawsuit over whether this link or that link is illegal. Nor are they going to spend extra money trying to be nice to somebody who used a blunderbuss lawsuit against them.
All of the links that they want removed are removed. Job done. The rest is just Google being very, very thorough.
It's kinda like a kid pissing on a wasps nest and complaining that the wasps didn't just quietly wait to drown. He'll be holding his breath a long time waiting for me to feel sorry for him -- or stop laughing, for that matter.
Re:Uh, tough? (Score:5, Interesting)
Welcome to the unintended consequences of your actions. Next time think about what you're doing a little harder.
What unintended? That's what they asked for, that's what they got. I am all for EU, I am European myself, but for once an American company did exactly what the court ordered. And now we complain?
Re:I'm trying to parse this (Score:2, Interesting)
You're right: No where in what you quoted does it say to withdraw a link to them from Google's search engine.
In that case it doesn't require them to withdraw a link to them from news.google.com either. It's the same search engine filtered to news articles. And the order says all sites.
Re:Money (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as Google seems like practically a public utility, it is a publicly-traded corporation allowed to protect its own interests and has a fiduciary responsibility to act in what its directors feel is the best interest fo its shareholders.
That means if Larry and Sergei feel that shareholder interests are best protected by de-listing any site that marginally fucks with Google in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, (i.e., frivolous lawsuits in indulgent Belgian court systems), guess what? Goodbye Belgian papers.
TL;DR: Don't fuck with Google. You won't like their 'remedy.'
"Don't be evil" is a mission statement with a broad interpretation.