More People Waking Up To The Troubling Implications Of The Gov't Taking $500 Million From Google
from the secondary-liability dept
Last week when it was confirmed that, via a "nonprosecution agreement," the government would forfeit $500 million from Google, because of some Canadian pharmacies, we were worried about the kind of message this sent to the tech community. While there are no specific safe harbors on secondary liability for criminal activity, the US judicial system generally does recognize the fact it's wrong to blame third parties for actions they were not specifically responsible for. There are, of course, some safe harbor rules (mainly 512 in the DMCA and 230 in the CDA) which clearly protect third parties from liability in specific instances, but even outside of those safe harbors, the courts have recognized how wrong it is to blame third parties for the actions of others, even if they occur on that third party's platform (for example: in the Tiffany/eBay case, where there are no safe harbors for trademark infringement, but eBay was still deemed not responsible).What there is in criminal law is the "aiding and abetting" concept, which is what the government apparently was focusing on here. However, the bar to reach that is pretty high. Either way, others are beginning to recognize the chilling effect this effort by the Justice Department is going to have on the tech community. It notes that the government now seems to think it's fair game to go after platform providers for aiding and abetting, even when the platform provider is just a tool being used. That's pretty scary.
In fact, the article even suggests that the only reason the government agreed to the "settlement" route here -- in which it only got the revenue back from Google, but no additional punitive award -- was because it knew that the "aiding and abetting" claim was weak and might have trouble standing up in court. But, now, with this agreement in hand, the Justice Department can effectively shake down lots of other companies, with a "see what happened to Google?" message. That's the sort of thing that's likely to make many companies "agree to settle" and basically "forfeit" huge chunks of cash to the US government, rather than fight.
Whether or not you believe that people should be able to access Canadian pharmaceuticals is a reasonable point of debate. But I think it should be a pretty big concern to everyone that the federal government appears to be stretching secondary liability concepts drastically in going after Google here.
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Filed Under: ads, canadian pharmacies, doj, liability, pharmacies, secondary liability
Companies: google
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Ugh, great
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Re: Ugh, great
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/sarc
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Re: Ugh, great
https://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/21/130727655/google-s-tax-tricks-double-irish-and-dut ch-sandwich
not to say other don't do this too
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Re: Ugh, great
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The settlement route is good for both parties, it gets the feds a "point to it" closed case to use in the future, and at the same time it frees Google from any further liablity. Considering that Google gave up about 1/70th of their cash / cash equivalents on hand, and didn't have to do anything else. Seems like a win all around.
I will say however that any settlement is always fodder for the conspiracy nuts to chew on.
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you and this stupid article are retarded.
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If the ads were also shown in Canada, and the Canadian pharmacies could legally sell in Canada, then calling them "pill scammers" is quite disingenuous.
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I find it rather suspicious that this particular piece of information was not included in the TechDirt article. Why is that?
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Reading! It's not just for third graders, anymore!
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Horse crap
Google took money to place advertisements for what it knew to be an illegal business. They even went so far as to assist the pharmaceutical companies in bypassing restrictions.
The fact that most people (myself included), find it ridiculous that Canadian pharmacies can't sell to the US, is beside the point. It _is_ illegal and they knew it and they still took the money.
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Re: Horse crap
In Germany and serve beer to a 16 year old, that's prison time in the USA.
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Re: Horse crap
Aiding and abetting?
Criminal investigation without proper permit?
Doing the police dept. job?
I mean, I am showing everyone, not just those looking for crack to consume, but also those looking to make a bust.
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You can't have your cake and eat it too
If a physical store was secretly sneaking in Canadian drugs at cut rate prices, the pharmacist would be put in jail. If a magazine was running ads or offering blow in cards with order forms, the publisher would be sent to jail.
Imagine if there was a pharmacist or a doctor or just a friend who was telling people how to order drugs from overseas. That person would be aiding and abetting law breaking. Why is it any different if a server does it? Why isn't the programmer guilty of whatever instructions are given to the server?
If this guy went to jail over helping people bring in drugs, why shouldn't the programmers and managers at Google? Oh wait. They're rich. They can buy their way out of jail with $500m.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/li-work-bringing-medicine-from-canada-to-long-i sland.html
Google wants to take all of the profit from taking someone else's job. Okay. But if you take the job, you take on the responsibility too.
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Re: You can't have your cake and eat it too
Lets take this a little further.
Why isn't the end users ISP guilty?
Why isn't the DNS guilty?
Why isn't the backbone guilty?
Why isn't the pharmacy guilty?
Why isn't the delivery service guilty?
Why isn't the ordering person guilty?
Why isn't the service that changed the US currency to Canadian guilty?
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Re: Re: You can't have your cake and eat it too
There may be cases when "aiding and abetting" is tricky for the jury to understand, but in many cases it's pretty obvious.
BTW, it's hilarious to listen to nerds try to come up with loony sophistries because they're only capable of seeing the world as some object-oriented hierarchy where everything is logically consistent. Humans have been living with conflicts in the logical structure for years. While these conflicts provide many chances for arguments and debates, humans end up solving them.
Juries are capable of convicting the boss who tells the henchmen what to do. No one sane thinks this is a 1st amendment issue. No one sane talks about whether it will have a "chilling effect" on mobsters if they're convicted for telling henchmen what to do. Yet astroturfers for Big Search continue to believe that Big Search can say whatever it wants without bearing any responsibility for it.
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I've never been more happy to be counted among the insane if that's your idea of a sane, rational thought.
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Re: Re: You can't have your cake and eat it too
There may be cases when "aiding and abetting" is tricky for the jury to understand, but in many cases it's pretty obvious.
BTW, it's hilarious to listen to nerds try to come up with loony sophistries because they're only capable of seeing the world as some object-oriented hierarchy where everything is logically consistent. Humans have been living with conflicts in the logical structure for years. While these conflicts provide many chances for arguments and debates, humans end up solving them.
Juries are capable of convicting the boss who tells the henchmen what to do. No one sane thinks this is a 1st amendment issue. No one sane talks about whether it will have a "chilling effect" on mobsters if they're convicted for telling henchmen what to do. Yet astroturfers for Big Search continue to believe that Big Search can say whatever it wants without bearing any responsibility for it.
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Re: Re: You can't have your cake and eat it too
But we're talking about Google. Why isn't Google guilty for doing what would put a human in jail?
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Re: You can't have your cake and eat it too
You do remember that the the "someone else" you're referring to, whose jobs were not likely taken at all, is the US pharma industry, one of the most immoral, corrupt, self-serving groups of people on the planet. Legality aside, it's very hard to be sympathetic about their alleged losses.
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Alternate Title
Of course, as usual, this comports with our Sacred Values -- presumption of guilt (guilty until proven innocent), due process (if you're making a lot of money, you're due to be processed through some expensive trial), the First Amendment freedom of expressing views the government likes, and all that.
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umm
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Re: umm
According to this ruling and bob the idiot poster above, YES, you do!
See, its no longer about the person actually selling the illegal drugs, its whoever TELLS you about it or takes ADS from them. Forget going after the ACTUAL drug company, now we go after the phone book and websites and any place that even talks ABOUT these drug dealers! Why, we should expect techdirt, usatoday, the times, cnn etc to be sued any minute now because they are RESPONSIBLE!!
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Well one is an action so no number there as for being larger or smaller than a "chorus" we would need to know how many people are in the chorus and/or the space they take up.
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I have a third party to sue...
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I'm not dead yet...
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Response to: Jesse on Aug 31st, 2011 @ 9:04am
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idk bout u
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It's not the institution of our government, it's the people we keep sending to operate it. How do we send the right people? Enough of the right people have to stand up and run for office.
Think about the Tea Party movement. It's had an influence in government and it's messages are mixed, with a lot of religious and current establishment baggage.
The Tea Party has however, shown us that a grass roots political movement can advance. The U.S. needs a strong Civil Libertarian political movement like the Tea Party people have.
I believe that the majority of our citizens ultimately believe in the rights of individuals and personal freedoms. Decades of systematic programming have made the masses believe they must accept the actions of the government representatives.
We just need to start electing leaders instead of politicians. :)
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Or you could make excuses as to why it can't be done because some people are rich. Even the non-rich in America have access to the Internet. You don't need riches to get the message out, you just need excited citizens to get their friends excited and educate each other.
While I will firmly speak out against our liberties being taken, we are putting those who take them into power. You may not have riches, but your one vote is equal to the richest person's one vote.
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It's a choice of getting them "illegally" or possibly dying. All to protect the profits of the multi-billion dollar pharma companies.
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Whoopsie. Did your partisan cover get blown?
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Just shows..
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murder
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Clear case of commercial interest.
2nd, it ran afoul of a large cartel.
3rd, it's an insane law, but a well known one. -- It's usually RE-importing US mf'd drugs.
Sum: Google won't do that again.
Cure: take the ridiculous profits out of drugs.
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Re: Clear case of commercial interest.
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Pharma, Banks, RIAA, ect. better watch out!
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Part of the Obama Secret Pharmaceutical Agreement?
Here's my reason and the same applies to other people I know:
Using Google to find a reputable Canadian pharmacy was the only way I could afford to get my prescription filled. Insurance refused to cover it as it was off-label use (never mind all the studies I provided them as to it's efficacy, the fact my doctor prescribed it, and the fact it is working.) The one pill per day I am on would cost me $18 per pill about half my disability pay whereas the MSRP on the box I get from the Canadian pharmacy is $0.14 per pill (a markup of $17.86 above the generic list price.) And I must mention that the drug is off patent so it should be "inexpensive" but the company that makes the drug paid off the generic drug makers to not import the drug into the US.
Thank you Google for helping me get my needed medications at an affordable price.
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So will they go after Ford or GM ...
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The being in calhoots with major corporations is biting us in the butt every time you turn around.
Obamacare that is supposed to address insurance for everyone is nothing but a money grab for insurance companies and big pharma. You can bet the cost won't go down with every one being required to have insurance.
This is the same argument that was presented for state auto insurance. If everyone had insurance it would be cheaper. Instead after everyone had insurance, they claimed they were paying more because now they had to pay for all the accidents.
In the same terms, this business of shutting off cheaper drug supplies will cause higher deaths from the lack of being able to pay for it. Most all the medical bankruptcies are from people that already have medical insurance. The insurance companies aren't paying it all, leaving the patient to have to pay it. Individuals can't afford the cost of medical help.
Already there are drug shortages where EPA and FDA have closed some of the drug manufacturing plants for safety concerns. Since there aren't that many to begin with, people are finding out their cancer drugs they depend on for life itself isn't available at any cost.
Getting them from Canada is one solution and an economical one that big pharma is scared to death of. Big pharma is in for a reduction in profits as starting in April, some of the drugs depended on patent protection runs out. Drugs like Viagra will have a price drop on them because generics will then be made.
Typically this is why the cost of drugs have skyrocketed in the last few years. They are milking the price for all it is worth before losing that sole manufacturing right.
That's a good thing.
Were the government really concerned about dealing with the price of Medicare, addressing medical liability costs would be one step in the right direction. Another would be ensuring that the patient god the same price breaks insured patents did. Everyone is looking for their fortune from your wallet. It's high time to address those skyrocketing costs for medical service as they are going up much faster than inflation can account for.
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Lets start calling a spade a spade
Of course the problem is that then people might realize that the next step down this road is a shake-down not by the government itself, but by the government's officials. Welcome to the world's newest banana republic.
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