Google Refuses to Remove the Pirate Bay's Homepage

[esquivalience]

I'm surprised this doesn't mention the European Court of Justice's decision that The Pirate Bay does directly infringe copyright. I'm paraphrasing the decision but there's a detailed writeup here: http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2017/06/30/cjeu-decisio...

[MrQuincle]

Ha, I assumed for a moment that you meant that the code for the Pirate Bay website itself is actually under copyright and that Pirate Bay did pirate it from the original rightful owner.

[hayksaakian]

If I was conspiracy minded, I might assume this was posted in response to the story about Google going into China:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17660872

[lbriner]

Another slightly pointless discussion ensues:

10 We should stop Google! 20 Google are acting within the law 30 Then the law is wrong, let's change the law 40 We have laws already about this 50 But those laws are bad, if only we had someone who could stand up for genuine rights 60 Google are standing up for rights 70 But they are abusing their position 80 GOTO 10

[saagarjha]

Off topic: your formatting seems to have gotten messed up. Try putting an extra line between each one.

[netsharc]

Not quite, the top comment here is about Google's don't be evil motto and that thread has 45 out of the currently 64 comments here. Along the way someone mentioned this depends on what the reader thinks is evil, so yeah, mostly pointless discussion.

[nafey]

Single point of failure in a system should be avoided

[megous]

People should learn to use urls again, to gain back some control.

[fragsworth]

But I think the Pirate Bay is unique in that it keeps losing its domain, getting blocked, etc. and Google tends to direct you to the latest working version of it.

[dzek69]

At least we still have url bar in browsers. Most cuts out protocol unfortunately

[octosphere]

That's not stopping a slew of proxy websites offering a mirror of the official PirateBay site:

https://proxybay.bz

https://thepiratebay-proxylist.se

https://thepiratebayproxylist.net

[phobosdeimos]

TPB is on TOR, just use that.

http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion/ I think it was.

[conradfr]

It's not always sufficient. For example TPB is blocked in France if you use your ISP's DNS.

[inetknght]

What's the news here? Google's doing the right thing. Don't remove things that aren't breaking any laws.

[hiccuphippo]

Not only bad news are newsworthy.

[pmarreck]

I think it's more about the precedent this would set

[dep_b]

You don't want to be that monopolist that removes competitors from your search results, right?

[alasdair_]

>You don't want to be that monopolist that removes competitors from your search results, right?

Or copying the search results from Google and pretending your own engine created them. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/02/02/google.bing.sting/ind...

[larrysalibra]

It's great that Google is doing the right thing in this case, but it is still incredibly dangerous for society that one company has so much power over what people can find on the internet.

Google used to say "Don't be evil," but no company or individual should be in the position where they can sit there and think "Should I be evil or not?"

[kyrra]

Google's code of conduct[0] still has "don't be evil" in it. The very last paragraph/line in the document:

> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

The big issue with a phrase like "don't be evil" is that it is ambiguous and highly depends on the understanding of the word "evil" to the individual that reads that line. Google at this point is 80k+ full-time-employees, that I can guarantee will read that phrase to mean different things.

The newer code of conduct tries to codify what "evil" means, to lay a clearer picture for everyone what it means. That way it can't arbitrarily be applied for or against the company based on your an individual's beliefs of what that word means.

[0] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html

[DannyB2]

Any company CAN sit there and think "should I be evil or not?"

> it is still incredibly dangerous for society that one company > has so much power over what people can find on the internet

That could easily refer to the RIAA / MPAA with their bogus DMCA takedown notices. Particularly when DMCA is misused to take down sites with no direct copyright infringement. Especially when it is obvious bogus, such as a DMCA takedown of someone's nature audio recordings, while the DMCA filer even doubles-down on the notice claiming it infringes the copyright on their music.

There should be a statutory large fine for filing a bogus DMCA notice just as their is a statutory high cost for copyright infringement.

[013a]

Seriously? Any person can go buy a gun and attack a mall. Ban guns and people can take a knife into a preschool. Ban knives and someone can go carjack a person with a tire iron.

Every single person and corporation is always in a position to act with evil or not. It is impossible to create a society where it is impossible to place people in a position where they have to rely on their morality to act correctly. You can only create a society which instills the right morals; you can support the entities which act with the right morals, and punish those who don't.

But go ahead and try to design a society where no one has the freedom to be evil; you might have missed the week of high school english where we read 1984.

[manigandham]

"Dont be evil" is nothing but a cute marketing statement. It has never been a serious principle in the life of the company and ceases to hold any meaning once it became a major multinational corporation.

I dont understand why this phrase keeps being brought up by the HN community which usually doesn't buy marketing gimmicks but in this case seem to be completely befuddled that a company that just said 3 words could somehow do things they may dislike.

[exegete]

The phrase "don't be evil" is obviously open to interpretation when it comes to issues like these. Most of us agree on a common moral standard since we have conscience (don't murder people, don't steal from people, etc.). Even then though, societies can change their views on what is morally acceptable behavior.

Can you really say that a private company blocking a website that helps facilitate illegal activities is "evil"? It might be something you don't like, or it even may be unwise for our society to allow companies to have this much power (as you said), but I don't think I would classify this as "evil".

[SXX]

After I read certain Brandon Sanderson fantasy book every time someone mention "Don't be evil" I starting to think of certain sapient magical item. Item in the book was given command to "Destroy Evil" and it's intelligently follow the command.

Very unfortunately neither this item from fantasy book nor corporation like Google can really provide clear statement on what "evil" is. Depend on whoever is in control Google can do whatever they want without ever going against this principle.

[tambourine_man]

>no company or individual should be in the position where they can sit there and think "Should I be evil or not?"

Or trusted to be able to tell the difference 100% of the time

[bluedino]

>> it is still incredibly dangerous for society that one company has so much power over what people can find on the internet.

Someone could form an organization that's run by donations that could create a web index that isn't influenced by advertising or other third parties. Like a wikipedia type thing.

[l5870uoo9y]

I take it most people agree, however the ramification of this would essentially be to breakup Google and ban storage of data deemed too sensitive.

[jadedhacker]

I had just read this essay which advocated for the FANG + Microsoft to be nationalized and taken out of the profit system like the post office. It really resonated with me. If anything, the removal of profits would return the things we like about these companies and remove the things we despise while giving their customers more of a say in how they do buisness.

https://catalyst-journal.com/vol2/no1/between-cambridge-and-...

[peter_retief]

Thank you google for not bowing to the bullies, you really are an organisation that deserves the respect of the developer community

[sdf43543t345]

That china bully tho: https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engi...

[buzzerbetrayed]

I can see where you're coming from. But the fact that Google puts so much effort in to ensuring they hold the only vote in decisions like this makes me wonder how much respect they really deserve.