EFF Ranks Service Providers For Who Stands Up To Copyright/Trademark Bullies

from the good-to-see dept

We've written in the past about the EFF's Who Has Your Back rankings, in which it looks at various internet companies to see who protects your privacy against governments and lawsuits. Now, the EFF has come out with an offshoot chart, looking at who has your back when it comes to bogus copyright and trademark demands. The only two companies that get a perfect score are Automattic/WordPress and NameCheap, as you can see on the full chart. The worst, somewhat surprisingly, is Tumblr, which scored a big fat zero out of the five listed items.
Automattic's Wordpress.com and NameCheap were the only two companies to receive five out of five stars. However, two other companies were recognized for going the extra mile: Etsy, for providing educational guides, and Twitter, for publishing regular and thorough transparency reports. Overall, 10 companies did not publish adequate transparency reports, highlighting an information black hole for consumers. Additionally, four companies missed a star for their counter-notice practices—a critical procedure for restoring content that may have been taken down without cause.
Twitter lost a point for not documenting the counternotice process. Etsy lost a point for failing to have a transparency report (something I'm guessing the company will do before too long). Facebook also doesn't have a transparency report -- though it does have one for government requests, so hopefully it will expand that to copyright and trademark takedown requests as well. YouTube lost points for not requiring a DMCA notice (thank you ContentID) before taking down content. Imgur also doesn't require a DMCA notice (which surprised me).

The EFF's original "Who Has Your Back" effort really did help shame many companies into upping their game in protecting the privacy of users from government requests. Hopefully this new one will do the same for copyright and trademark takedowns.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, policies, service providers, trademark, who has your back
Companies: automattic, eff, etsy, facebook, imgur, namecheap, tumblr, wordpress, youtube


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. icon
    Ninja (profile), 28 Oct 2014 @ 1:52am

    Question: can we expand Youtube rating to Google as well? (Would Google get the same ratings if Youtube is excluded?)

    Tumblr is one surprise for me there even though I should have seen it coming from past news. As a bit of a suggestion I'd expand this list with many other services. Still it's a nice initiative from EFF. Kudos for them!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    colin seeger, 28 Oct 2014 @ 3:59am

    ISPS

    Good work and all but for REAL balls, check out iiNet in Australia which has gone to the High Court once and likely to do so again, in defence of its customers. Credit where credit is due. They deserve a big wrap for what they are doing here.

    CS

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 28 Oct 2014 @ 5:02am

    Re: ISPS

    They've been mentioned several times on TD already, with the latest not too long ago if memory serves.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2014 @ 10:21am

    Please use smaller images, I can still make out a few words in that one.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Jack Of Shadows (profile), 28 Oct 2014 @ 11:12am

    Easy DNS

    Easy DNS should be another stand out firm for their rights with the city of London's Police PIPCU.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2014 @ 1:53pm

    I'm pretty amazed that imgur is a two star slacker , guess they don't put much value in their user base.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2014 @ 2:21pm

    I Con the record

    Not surprising that the Intelligence community chooses to use the option with the lowest score.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.