Webwork - 8:30 pm on Jan 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

Perhaps, EFV, because those of us who know the business know that Google has been providing the financial incentive for this practice for as long as the practice has existed. It's not as if the very bright people at Google couldn't grasp the many sides to this issue from the outset.

Sometimes one has to make the right choice before the public heat makes that choice inevitable. This isn't "doing right by doing good". This is whistling whilst casually sauntering away from the house you just set fire to.

Google does the "we can't stop what we set in motion" routine fairly well, jointly profiting with all manner of wrongdoers from content scraping, MFA's, persistent consumer-fraud-like Adwords garbitrage, massive domain tasting that includes god only knows how many famous trademark typosquats, etc.

Beyond the "doing good" I can imagine Google coming to grips with the idea that at some point some clever law firm will realize there is a VERY large sum of money to be made not by proving that Google "did wrong" but by proving that it profited from being the financial partner of the wrongdoers. R.I.C.O.? An equitable action for the disgorgement of all profits? Some remedy will be fashioned that will either allow the plaintiffs to reach back, via statute of limitations or equity, a long number of years.

One cannot claim "clean hands" by endlessly washing one hand whilst the other hand firmly holds onto all ill-gotten gains. For all the good Google does no jury will be particuarly impressed with how much it has profited by providing the profit motive and profit mechanism for, AND sharing in the profits of, all manner of unclean behavior.

One cannot round up all the geniuses Google does and then claim "Gee, sorry, but we just couldn't get our heads around what was happening or how to stop it." The monetization of "tasted domains" has been going on for about 2+/- years. Cessation of the monetization of domain kiting was a no brainer.

Google provided the mechanism to make money from kiting and tasting. They provided the financial incentive to do it. They effectively provided the financing to continue kiting and expand kiting. Clearly, they profited from it.

I have no trouble seeing Google as the efficient cause or cause-in-fact of the entire domain tasting/kiting practice. I suspect someone in Google came to grips with this potential jury "finding of fact".

[edited by: Webwork at 9:21 pm (utc) on Jan. 26, 2008]