Google Wins Lawsuit In France Over Censoring Autocomplete On File Sharing Terms... But Still Does It Anyway

from the why? dept

Tue, May 10th 2011 10:05pm — Mike Masnick

We're still quite confused about Google's recent decision (under pressure from the US government) to censor its autocomplete suggestions for certain terms that might be related to infringement. But the decision to do so seems even odder now, as we find out that, all this time, Google's been fighting a lawsuit in France that's trying to force the company to do the same thing. Apparently, the French anti-piracy organization SNEP sued about autocomplete, saying that showing suggestions that include things like "torrent," "RapidShare," and "Megaupload" were tantamount to encouraging infringement. Thankfully, both the lower court and now an appeals court have ruled that Google need not censor autocomplete search entries... But it seems like the victory is somewhat meaningless, in that Google has decided to censor itself anyway.

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Filed Under: autocomplete, france, search
Companies: google

14 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2011 @ 10:37pm

I like how everyone is trying to make the internet a different experience based on your location. When will this site no longer be available to me because i do not live in the US and have to pay an extra tariff? get cracking on that government, your telcos need you!
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- Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2011 @ 11:39pm
  
  Re:
  Governments are evil.
  
  They try and make the citizens look like the villains but the true villains are the governments.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 1:08am
    
    Re: Re:
    Those evil governments you mention are working for the jurassic entertainment industries, good sir.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 3:35am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Fact: "Jurassic" entertainment is still the most popular entertainment in the world.
      
      Are you yet another jealous and resentful "dinosaur" addict?
      
      LOL
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      - Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 5:51am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        {{Citation needed}}
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      - Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 8:16am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The video game industry in all formats dwarfs the movie and music industries. Let's not even get into the associated advertising industries tied to many of those video games.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 1:02am

how silly
torrents have clear non infringing uses, such as helping open source developers distribute software even without a ton of bandwidth at their disposal. Asking google to do away with autocomplete for anything having to do with that technology is unreasonable.
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Ralph-J (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 1:26am

Obligations create risk
What would happen if they had not fought the lawsuit and accepted the obligation to censor search suggestions the way the entertainment industry demands?

1. They would have set themselves up for fines and more lawsuits if any violations were found in the future.
2. They would have had to invest more resources into implementing and maintaining the system demanded by SNEP. Their own voluntary implementation is probably much simpler and cheaper in detail and still prevents future lawsuits.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2011 @ 3:25am

We're still quite confused about

Who's this "we're"????

Everyone knows this is your own personal "I-bitch-about-copyright" blog...
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- The eejit (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 4:51am
  
  Re:
  Are you an idiot, or do you simply have the attention-span of a retarded zombie goldfish?
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- abc gum, 11 May 2011 @ 4:51am
  
  Re:
  "Everyone knows this is your own personal "I-bitch-about-copyright" blog..."
  
  Who is this everyone?
  
  LOL you're such a tool
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  - Greg G (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 5:57am
    
    Re: Re:
    Glad you mentioned his double standard statement.
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- DannyB (profile), 11 May 2011 @ 5:34am
  
  Re:
  You are confused and/or are seriously deficient in reading comprehension.
  
  One of the subjects, but not the only subject, discussed on this blog is the unreasonable expansion of copyright far beyond its constitutional purpose.
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AJBarnes, 11 May 2011 @ 4:51am

Next up...
I completely agree. When I type in IDIOT, it autocompletes CONGRESSMAN. When I type in MORON, it autocompletes SENATOR. When I type in MONEY WHORE, it ... well, do it yourself and see what you get. It's embarassing to do this to our venerable officials. So, GOOGLE... turn off that autocomplete, or at least make it lie so we can move closer to 1984 than we are now.
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