Brett_Tabke - 2:12 pm on Feb 13, 2007 (gmt 0)

There are many in the Search Engine World space that think the Belgians are out of touch with progressive main stream thinking on the issues involved; but, I think it is a fascinating and interesting ruling. On the surface, it looks like another simple ruling over deep links. Google is scanning, deriving, compiling, compounding, and synthesizing intelligence from those newspaper stories and sites. This aint about links - it's about data intelligence and intellectual property! In effect, Google is compiling what amounts to competitive intel off the those sites with little in return except the potential for a referral or two. Of which, the majority of those referrals are false referrals. That traffic is going to go to those .be sites anyway - there is no other way to get alot of that news other than those sites. So they are pretty bullet proof to being delisted and certainly only have to gain from not being in the News section. Why should those sites have to give that up for free instead of saving it for their subscribing public?

We also have no indication that the Belgium paper alliance has asked Google to pay them for the stories. In fact, it appears by some reports that the paper alliance want nothing to do with Google what so ever.

I think for now, the real interesting question is if more sites come around to the Belgians line of thought?

Plans by Google for a Danish news site have been ditched after newspapers complained, while other legal challenges are set to follow in France.

It isn't such an issue in the states as Google has done a great job of pro-actively pre-empting problems like this by forging deals with big media like Time Warner, New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Also, I think the fine is a bit more than some reports are indicating:

A Belgian court has found the world’s most popular internet search engine in breach of national copyright legislation and levied retrospective fines on Google of up to £24 million.

[telegraph.co.uk...]

It is also interesting to note how the story is being framed from Europe to "this side of the pond". The Telegraph story clearly pushes it into a "anti american" action, while the .be papers talk specifically about intellectual property and copyright.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:17 pm (utc) on Feb. 13, 2007]