willybfriendly - 6:14 pm on Nov 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

Melvil Dewey was the first to come up with the idea that indexing large amounts of data for easy retrieval would be smart and would be a service people would want. Have you ever heard anyone say Dewey just copied and stole all the names and titles from a bunch of books he never wrote and categorized them, profiting from the works of others. He never created anything.

Are you seriously suggesting that index cards in a file in a library (now on a computer) is akin to Google news and Adwords?

Those libraries acquire books via purchase. They don't scrape them or photocopy them. They don't run ads in the card files. Your analogy falls apart on so many levels it borders on the ridiculous.

Yes, I had web properties prior to Google, and prior to adwords/adsense - back when a link meant referrals, not a means to gain rankings.

Google's algo and the ability to accurately organize and rank web documents is irrelevant to Google's marginal respect of fair use. Two different issues. I will grant that Google has transformed the Internet, but I do not believe that transformation has all been for the good. Google ads have transformed the Internet as much as the Google search algo, and little of that has been for the general good (although many, including myself, have profited from it).

That has nothing to do with the issue here, which is Google's self proclaimed right to profit (i.e. commercial activity) on the backs of content authors. The argument to simply opt out is, again, irrelevant.

How many here realize that Brin and Page originally resisted the idea of an advertising based model, even writing a research paper on the subject in 1998 when they were still students? How many remember early attempts to develop a market for the Google Search Appliance?

My point here is that there was a time when Google Search was a free service that respected the intellectual property of others. That time is long past. It is now the Gorg, assimilating all denizens of the web into their ever expanding, ad based empire.

The size, influence and increasing indifference should be a sobering influence for even the biggest consumers of the kool-aid, although it would appear that some are beyond hope.

This thread stands as a good example. The opening post suggested it would be a discussion of intellectual property. Instead it is a discussion of personality (the G corporate personality vs Murdoch) and/or G apologists predictably reiterating their support of the corporation - support that often appears to be based solely in the income that Google provides via their now ubiquitous advertising.

This is so short sighted I can't believe someone who calls themselves a webmaster would even suggest it.

Time will tell what is or is not "short sighted".