France again threatens Google with link tax French President François Hollande has told Google chair Eric Schmidt his nation intends to proceed with plans to force the Chocolate Factory to pay when it links to news content. Hollande, Aurélie Filippetti (France's Minister of Culture and Communication) and Fleur Pellerin (Minister for Small and Medium Enterprises, …
No, Google is not hotlinking. Hotlinking has a very precise meaning: the client pulls content directly from the original site without the intermediary site supporting the bandwidth costs. Google has tons of flaws but not this one, all the content returned by a search query is served by Google's own servers.
And seriously, pirated content? Every single copyright law allows for short citations, which is exactly what Google does. Actually, that's exactly the point of the planned French law: changing the copyright law so that news contents is treated differently with regards to short citations, but only on the internet of course (which incidentally is the very reason why this law won't work here in France, it introduces an unwarranted difference of treatment between news agencies and every other content producer, and depending on the medium used too -- fortunately we have legal safeguards against that).
I find it quite incredible to find such an uninformed comment as yours on a tech site like ElReg, I mean it's not like we were debating climate change here...
"no, Google is not hotlinking..."
You're splitting hairs. The point is that they take content from some site and display that content on their own site. The way they do it technically hardly matters.
"And seriously, pirated content?"
Yes seriously. It's beyond 'fair-use' because it's possible to browse google news without ever leaving it and get a meaningfull idea of what's going on in the world. They copy images, headline and exerpt. They server ads. They make money on others content.
It is only because google is so big that the news sites don't dare go against them because then google will just de-index them from their search engine. It's basically blackmail.
"find such an uninformed comment as yours on a tech site like ElReg,"
Do you write this epitaph to every comment you make? If everybody had the same opinion as yourself there would hardly be a discussion, now would there? Oh I forgot, your entire comment is just a typical hive-mind mentality. I bet you carry the latest iPhone as well.
"Google News is actually hotlinking (which the article fails to mention). That is, they steal the images, headline and first paragraph/excerpt from the news article and displays it on their news site."
You're an idiot!
Google does the same for every last item in it's index, not just news sites. I can search for images in Google Images. I can search for videos in Google Videos. People pay companies to get Google to index their sites.
It Google didn't "Steal" images and text from website, just imaging the search engine. The news page would be link after link called News and you'd have to click it just know what it was about.
If you got what you wanted Google would have to pay every last site on the internet for the priviledge of indexing their site.
I can see why you went AC. Man you are thick!
If the French didn't want Google to link then they could add a no follow to robots.txt. They want Google to link them but they think they can screw Google as well. They just want to see how far they can push their luck until Google pulls the plug on them.
"You're an idiot!"
"Man you are thick!"
No YOU are the thick idiot here. You can't argue your point properly so you have to resort to name calling?
There is a huge difference between google image search and google news. Image search searches the whole web. News displays just news stories based on a geographic, etc.
It's possible to get a meaningful idea of what is going on in the world by ONLY browsing google news (i.e. without clicking any links). They copy enough of the article, they copy one of the photos in the article. They serve ads. They earn money on others content. Therefore it is piracy.
"they could add a no follow to robots.txt"
Why should they? Just because some company decides to rip their content, now they have to go modify their site? And this would also mean they wouldn't get indexed in the search (yes, there is a difference between 'google search' and 'google news').
Everyone is over taxed to begin with. Once this type of thing starts with an open service such as usage of the net, then it will never end.
Google should simply remove all the France web sites to show them how the loss of millions of visits will affect them. Then they can think about this. The losses will reduce the value of the advertizing revenue that they presently have.
Soon will will be taxed for sitting on a park bench or simply taking a walk outside on the street!
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