Google: EU Antitrust Fine is "Inappropriate"

[engine]

You'll all recall the EU statement of objections (see link below) and here's the latest reply from Google which Reuters managed to see.

Google is saying it's offering a free search service, and that there's "no trading relationship" between it and it's search users, hence the statement from Google that a fine, potentially as much as $.6.6 billion, would be "inappropriate."

"Imposing a fine in the present case would be inappropriate. The novelty of the statement of objections' theory, the selection of the case for commitment negotiation and Google's good faith participating in these negotiations militate against the imposition of a fine," the document said.

Google said it should not be charged with abusing its dominance in Europe as it provided a free search service.

"The statement of objections fails to take proper account of the fact that search is provided for free. A finding of abuse of dominance requires a 'trading relationship' as confirmed by consistent case law. No trading relationship exists between Google and its users." Google: EU Antitrust Fine is "Inappropriate" [uk.reuters.com]

Google Challenges the European Commission's Statement of Objections [webmasterworld.com]

[fathom]

DMCA protection is weak.

DMCA doesn't offers you any no real protection from the current situation (at least in the USA, that's what the courts do), it merely align digital media with current Copyright Law. You might convince someone that is knowningly violating the law to stop... But like you suggest that doesn't protect much.

I'm quite positive you never actually hired an IP attorney. DMCA actually protects Google's from your frivolous claims, although from your own statements they don't seem to be too worried about using their Safe Harbor awarded to them by the legislation. I trust their legal team investigated and clearly appreciate your claims are false. May be false due to ignorance but still false no matter what. (That's just an educated guess though).

Your first step is to "Register Your Copyright". Until you do this, there are no consequences for infringement/piracy.

[raseone]

I didnt want to say this but...im guessing maybe english is not fathoms first language. I hate to take the bait that he keeps floating out there but like i said... These unshakably pro-Google activists are very suspicious to me. The illusion of a legitimate debate that they weave should not be allowed to go unchallenged.

Its hard to tell if fathom is simply confused or purposely trying to obfuscate the reality.

The fact is Googles response to complaints about registered trademarks and copyrights has been no different to its reaction to unregistered rights. Anything that I've raised a big stink about has been registered... But it doesn't matter. The registrations are of little consequence when you're simply priced out of any real legal challenge and everyone knows that the VAST majority of original works on the web are not registered.

This particular tactic of obfuscation is exactly what i called out in my first post. Its not trivial, not a conspiracy theory. In the context of Googles own webmaster forum it seems somewhere between incredibly dishonest and criminal neglegence. In a neutral environment like this its no less disturbing.

Alternative search engines exist but Google's stuppborn dominance makes them nearly irrelevant. Being accused of so many complex abuses I really doubt thats its beyond Google's reach or interest to maintain the illusion of legitimate debate... To sink some energy into confusing or explaining away peoples concerns. Its a bit hard to attribute it all to "fanboy" behavior. Normal people just don't do stuff like that.

[raseone]

Here's another little gem....

Youtube piracy for some of my content and for clients content which i help to manage has been rampant for years. Is a headache to police and Google's compliance with takedown orders is both unreliable and apparently temporary.

Said content should not be on youtube at all. Neither i or said client have any desire to publish this content on youtube.

I tried to join the youtube content id program to help stem the abuse.

The reply from google was that i must first set up a youtube channel, load all the content to youtube, achieve substantial viewership for my channel... Then you'll be eligible for content id protection.

[jmccormac]

Having dealt with piracy (or more correctly, Copyright Infringement) and the legislation around it at a professional level and having seen how the the rights holders lobby for legislative protections, it is a serious business for all concerned. See that word "business"? To the people who commercially engage in copyright infringement, it is a business. Some infringer in the back of beyonds on bullet proof hosting is going to ignore legal threats. And if they are shut down by their HSP, then they will be back in business in hours on another HSP and the game of "whack a mole" continues. But the only ones making money are the lawyers and those in the chain of infringement (the HSPs, the advertisers and Google). Rather than relying on dubious interpretations, the following might be good starting points for posters who want to get some understanding of the subject.

[en.wikipedia.org...]
[en.wikipedia.org...]

Google was nailed for its involvement in advertising illegal drugs. It had to pay approximately $500 million in fines. Google directly benefits from copyright infringement. It is not in its best financial interests or those of its shareholders to effectively shut it down. The most effective way of dealing with infringement is to target the monetisation aspect.

Regards...jmcc

[raseone]

It is not in its best financial interests or those of its shareholders to effectively shut it down. The most effective way of dealing with infringement is to target the monetisation aspect.

Thank you. Definitely. For anyone who goes through it you come to this conclusion pretty quick because it's the only thing that works.

If Google only monetized or only promoted then perhaps they would be less culpable... still culpable, but less... but they do both. They do both when perfectly good legitimate sources are readily available. They do both even after being notified that they are doing it & need to stop. Its a very expensive & futile pursuit.

I'll stop now... This thread was about a whole variety of abuses. I've said enough about piracy. If anyone else wants to try simultaneously preaching to the choir & pissing into the wind its pretty fun.

[fathom]

Only the courts can offer relief & remedies from infringement when the parties disagree.

[raseone]

There are not enough courts in the world to "offer remedies" to the endless millions of instances of Google-sponsored piracy.

The real problem is in Google's "I dare you to sue me" approach to intelectual property rights and in their search engines obvious preference toward piracy over legitimate sources and their refusal to stop monetizing reported pages and sites.

There are no parties that "disagree" the pirates and scrapers know exactly what they're doing and so does Google.

[fathom]

[google.com...]

Why do you remove some URLs but not others?

It is our policy to respond to clear and specific notices of alleged copyright infringement. Upon review, we may discover that one or more URLs specified in a copyright removal request clearly did not infringe copyrights. In those cases we will decline to remove those URLs from Search. Reasons we may decline to remove URLs include not having in enough information about why the URL is allegedly infringing; not finding the allegedly infringing content referenced in the request; deducing that the copyright removal process is being used improperly (see next FAQ for examples) or fair use.

I vaguely recall someone mentioning typeface.

Generally, copyright law in the U.S. does not protect typefaces. Fonts may be protected as long as the font qualifies as computer software or a program (and in fact, most fonts are programs or software).

That said, Google Legal have a habit of routinely using their safe harbor that is afforded to them by DMCA. In fact, they used it 3.6 million times this year so far as noted at [lumendatabase.org...]

There is an obvious reason (to them) why they don't trust your claims that isn't as transparent as your claims about me being a Google fanboy. They have honor every DMCA Claim I have filed, but I prefer dealing with the host first. Shuts off Google's Sponsored piracy at the source.

[raseone]

Fathom... I can see that you're trying really hard & I'm sure that Google appreciates it.

One word of advice though... Adding more links & quotes to your posts wont help when the basic premise is so far off. I was going to respond in detail but I think I'll just save it for the more important task of arguing with google directly.

I don't actually think you're a fanboy. I'm more suspicious & crazy than that. I actually think people who do what you're doing are probably being paid by someone.

[fathom]

I really don't care about Google, but yes I'm being paid to avoid PANDA, PENGUIN & Manual Reviews.

[raseone]

Whatever fuzzy animal you call it... avoiding it is not within your power. You think is because you're good. Its actually because you're lucky.

I've never had a manual review, penalty or warning. Most of the people hit by Google have not had any manual action. Most are not spammers or scammers... Just people upset that they've been screwed. You can't debunk reality.

[fathom]

Whatever fuzzy animal you call it... avoiding it is not within your power. You think is because you're good. Its actually because you're lucky.

Luck had nothing to do with it!

I've never had a manual review, penalty or warning. Most of the people hit by Google have not had any manual action. Most are not spammers or scammers... Just people upset that they've been screwed. You can't debunk reality.

Most people hit by Google have no clue why they got hit by Google. Their job isn't to know that Manual Reviews are mostly your competitor doing research and filing a spam report and the Webspam Team understanding their automated algorithm didn't handle whatever it was... So they naturally take manual action.

PANDA is commonly associated with large websites e.g. too much content without enough PageRank to support. A couple examples would be blue widget, red widgets, black widgets, strip widgets, spotted widgets, etc., etc., etc.

Another common one is the city, town, village page that the owner suggest a searcher in Oil City would want their own page & that wouldn't be good for folks in Waterville so a page for that, and so on.

Google doesn't need 10,000 or 100,000 widget pages or city pages to show Google users, if the products are only differentiated by attributes like color, size, quantity, etc., (or the only difference is the city name) those could be (should be) toggles or buttons on a page. You might not see this as intentional spam (but it is) from the search engine's vantagepoint as well as the searchers, as well as all competing sites that also desire ranks.

Thus it devalues all the pages that could be associated with the page(s) with link juice.

A quick fix to this may have been developing deeplinks... Course the original problem is still there, many sites only exacerbate the issue by developing unnatural link anchors that allows PENGUIN to devalue them again or more.

The reality... Google handled 3.6 million DMCA claims (that's about 10,000/day) and totally ignored yours... Why? There must be a simply explanation why they opted not to use their safe harbor. ...and this never caused your PANDA problem either.

You're so hell bend not wanting to fix your problem maybe because you just love your misery too much.

I have no clue about your site's size but it sounds like 10K+... am I wrong?

[raseone]

You make no sense.

Your "skill" at avoiding decemation by google is likely about the same as my home's skill at avoiding tornados.

For the record: I run many sites for myself and many others. All shapes, sizes, types and industries.

Anyone who uses phrases like "PageRank" or "Deep linking" or "Link Juice" is outing themselves. People with something to offer or something important to do don't concern themselves with the business of artificially manipulating search rank.

[fathom]

I'm not avoiding anything... I don't care if you think Google is supporting piracy and cut you out of the loop.

So every one of yours sites were devalued April 11, 2011?

I service SEO Practitioners. It is clear you don't.

I'm sure you have business oriented lingo that is equally foreign to outsiders. So ignore my ignorance as I thought you were skilled in SEO.

All I asked was the size of your affected site. If you have lots of affected site then all their sizes.

[raseone]

If google really has done all of this in an attempt to overcome the artificial gaming of its system then we have people like you to thank.

By proudly claiming SEO as your business you prove my point for me. Artificially inflated, useless garbage still does well on google while regular sites and business suffer.

[fathom]

The problem is "REGULAR"... not sure why a regular website deserves superior results. They are just regular, aren't they? That generally implies regular results not top results.

I'm glad you're happy with your lot in life.

Will respect your right to be miserable while my webspam prospers.

[raseone]

Anger and misery are 2 very different things.

I am a content creator and publisher. You are an SEO.

You profit from a practice sold to people having trouble with google. At least you have the courage to admit what you do unlike most of the other SEOs lurking this forum.

[fathom]

Clearly you don't have any idea what I do.

I hire a great many content creators and buy their rights from them, register those rights as mine LEGALLY with the US Copyright Office to protect my PAID interest. Then I license that content to customers as part of an end-to-end solution.

Whether they had problems from manipulating results (before I started) or just lack the appreciation to generate results on their own is neither here nor there.

It is very clear I don't lurk here or in any of the boards I frequent... I get deeply involved in the threads of discussion I participant in.

Whether Google gets slapped with massive antitrust fines in the EU or not we do extremely well in the USA and while there might be a ripple effect towards the US I suffered through my loses to Google before PANDA... But I learned, that's the part you refused to do.

You hijacked this thread to spew your anger at the expense of everyone else.

[jmccormac]

Looks like brown trousers time for Google. The EU commission has ruled that Apple has to pay back taxes in Ireland.

[theguardian.com...]

Regards...jmcc

[nomis5]

Google agrees £130m UK tax deal with HMRC

See this BBC article:
[bbc.co.uk...]

Matt Brittin, head of Google Europe, told the BBC: "Today we announced that we are going to be paying more tax in the UK.

"The rules are changing internationally and the UK government is taking the lead in applying those rules so we'll be changing what we are doing here. We want to ensure that we pay the right amount of tax."

Wow! So that means it was alright before but suddenly things have changed. That's spin, spin and double spin which hopefully fools no-one.

[jmccormac]

The UK tax deal is unravelling and it has attracted EUC attention. In case anyone still doesn't get it, there are political elements to this case that the usual Google FUDbuddies in the media and elsewhere are ignoring.

"The European Competition Commissioner says she is willing to investigate Google's tax arrangements should someone complain about them.
Her comments come as the SNP's economy spokesman, Stewart Hosie, says it has sent a letter calling for such a probe.
The development comes as the row over Google's tax affairs in the UK and elsewhere intensifies."

[bbc.com...]

Regards...jmcc