Month: March 2002

Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites – These sites had anti-Scientology information on them. And the Church of Scientology threatened to sue Google over copyright infringement unless they removed the sites from the search engine. I take for granted that pretty much any site, unless they have code embedded to not be indexed by search engines, will be listed in Google or other search engines. I don’t think it should be up to the search engines to figure out what URLs to exclude, as it will drastically cut down on the free exchange of information that we all know & love. Just another example of abuse of the law. They can’t go after the site directly because it’s in the Netherlands, so instead they are going after the search engine that leads people there.

BUT … now Google has restored some of the the website links to their database after being slammed by free speech advocates for removing the sites in the first place. Good news, but it still troubles me that they were removed at all. [via BoingBoing]

Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders: “According to the CBDTPA (Consumer Broadband and Digital Promotion Act), any software with the ability to reproduce “copyrighted works” may not be sold in the United States after the Federal Communications Commission’s regulations take effect. Even programmers who distribute their code for free would be prohibited from releasing newer versions — unless the application included federally approved technology.”

Amazing. Simply amazing. Once again the government scares me when it comes to their ideas on technology laws. Here is more informaton on what Hollings’ bill would do. They also want to use this bill to sue manufacturers of MP3 players. Forget about fair use as established by copyright laws, which allows me to copy my own CDs for my own personal use. This pretty much would end that. I understand the issues of concern that one day no one will buy CDs, but there still needs to be fair use allowed. More links on both of the articles to other related articles.

AOL mail: OK for others, not itself: So, you see, thanks to the many problems that AOL’s e-mail system has, it seems the AOL employees aren’t using it. I like the fact that if they send something to a large group of people (like you might send something to a whole team of co-workers), AOL considers them spammers and shuts them down. How is that for ironic? [via Signal vs. Noise]