I was kind of disappointed to hear that from a Google representative. I get the feeling that Google cares only about covering their own asses, so even if Congress votes an "evil" bill like this one, it's not their problem as long as it doesn't affect them directly.
Which is fine, I suppose. You can't expect much more from a corporation. But this is why I wanted an organization like EFF to be present at the hearing. Someone who would actually care about other things, like Internet liberties, besides protecting their own profits.
But those managing the hearing don't seem to care about issues like these at all. All they care about if whether the bill helps protect some jobs on one side (pro-SOPA) or helps destroy others or destroy new businesses (anti-SOPA).
The Internet is much more than a zero-sum game regarding jobs, and the Government shouldn't be in the business of favoring one industry's jobs over the other. Let them deal with their problems themselves, and not use tax payer money to fix their problems, and kill or cripple another industry in the process - without even mentioning all those liberty and censorship issues.
> so even if Congress votes an "evil" bill like this one, it's not their problem as long as it doesn't affect them directly
The "don't be evil" motto doesn't imply Google is going to run around fighting moral causes that don't directly affect them. I get the impression that these days their goal on that front is to be steadfastly amoral rather than pro-actively moral, except where taking a more active stance aids the company's goals.
"The EFF’s Trevor Timm said he was overall happy with Google’s arguments in the hearing, but he thought the use of WikiLeaks as an example and the company’s focus on “following the money” revealed that it was more interested in its own search business than in freedom of speech.”They seemed to be endorsing the way that payment processors and advertisers should be censoring sites,” said Timm. ”I think it really shows why they should have had more of a representation of people at the hearing. Google is looking out for its interests, but we’re looking out for the interest of everyone on the Internet. Categorizing Wikileaks as a rogue site isn’t something we agree with.”"
I might be looking at this wrong, but it seemed like Google was just pointing out an example of how this tactic has been effective in the past. They don't say anything about whether they condone the use of this strategy for the specific case of Wikileaks.
What I like about this statement from Google is that it highlights that the bill as it stands doesn't differentiate between rogues and free-speech websites like WikiLeaks. I find this statement as a hidden jab, rather than just self-interest preserving statement.
sound better to me, but not good. i don't think its normal to cut ANY such service without a prior trial.
Be it your bank account or website. What about just expulsion from your own house? coming next, maybe.
Welcome to the world where corporations control every bit, and where you don't own anything, you're merely licensed to use it, be it software of physical items (so again, house, or anything else)
Americans are being foreclosed on in mass, and in some instances they've been forced out of their homes wrongly by a corporation who made a mistake (here's looking at you, BoA).
But with 50% of the mortgages in the country underwater, corporations taking houses is much more real than we want to admit.
Actually that world is reality for many people. Think about it, how many people do you know that own "their" car... most people i know just drive cars on leasing plans, live for rent, and use a company computer and cellphone most of the time.
Owning something has become for many things the exception rather than the norm.
It's interesting that by threatening to attack both DNS records and payment processing without a trial or judicial review, everyone has jumped on board the "compromise" that they are willing to accept payment processing take downs of free speech sites without judicial review as long as the DNS records can be saved. Which were never a real issue anyway since you can just switch to offshore DNS servers, or switch to raw ip addresses as most of us did when wikileaks.org was taken out.
It seems to me this has been the goal since the beginning. If the bill was only about attacking the finances of sites, the discussion here would have been about how this is an attack on free speech. By bundling it with another issue to be given up as a token sacrifice, a goal they weren't even really interested in to begin with, they are able to get the public to support and even advocate their original goal, which otherwise few would have been in favor of.
Actually, this is great. If visa/mastercard/banks etc will start blocking heavily every shady business, these businesses will have to move to bitcoin and other non-goverment-controlled currencies/payment systems. In the long run this benefits us all.
First, is this realistic? Most torrent sites advertise porn or malware, which none of the big advertising companies serve anyway. Wikileaks doesn't use advertising, but by popular demand they may raise money in any possible way, even in cash from selling t-shirts. Very weak argument from Google
Not to mention that the best torrent sites tend not to advertise at all, and are able to stay afloat solely on user donations. This could be a key point on this whole issue. If regular people are able to organize to create, share, and distribute content between each other more efficiently and, most of all, cheaper than corporations can do it, is this really a viable business strategy anymore?
EDIT: I don't think it will be very long (less than 15 years) before the content industries are dwindling, and regular people band together to replace it. It's already happening at a small scale.
Why would it have to be the big advertising companies? If there's ads, there's a money trail - you just cutoff at that point. Torrent sites can be hosted in some safe heaven or Tor site, but if they can't get money from the US and other "cooperative" countries, they won't last much.
I was watching the stream and my jaw dropped when I heard Oyama make the reference to Wikileaks.
I think she was making the point that strangling the finances of "rogue" parties is very effective, and how Wikileaks was handled is a textbook example of that strategy in action.
I doubt she thought it was right or ethical. She said elsewhere in the hearing that Google supports cutting off finances with direction from courts. In any case, it does prove her point that cutting off finances is an effective strategy and can already be done without SOPA (or other new legislation).
The problem with such proposals is the unfairness of it.
I mean, OK, you want to "protect IP", but in case of a false positive add a note in there that the complainer should pay the affected party a sum proportional to the complainer's market cap, such as this (numbers pulled from my ass, but you get the point):
Let's assume this is a viable method. Is this method scalable? It took concerted effort by many financial institutions and gov'ts in order to pull that off. And that was probably helped by the strong motivation afforded by their anti-cause.
I don't see similar herculean efforts to deal with ordinary piracy, unless a framework were set-up. Would a society benefit from such a pan-national behemoth (assuming it would necessitate one)?
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
Which is fine, I suppose. You can't expect much more from a corporation. But this is why I wanted an organization like EFF to be present at the hearing. Someone who would actually care about other things, like Internet liberties, besides protecting their own profits.
But those managing the hearing don't seem to care about issues like these at all. All they care about if whether the bill helps protect some jobs on one side (pro-SOPA) or helps destroy others or destroy new businesses (anti-SOPA).
The Internet is much more than a zero-sum game regarding jobs, and the Government shouldn't be in the business of favoring one industry's jobs over the other. Let them deal with their problems themselves, and not use tax payer money to fix their problems, and kill or cripple another industry in the process - without even mentioning all those liberty and censorship issues.
[+] [-] dspillett|14 years ago|reply
The "don't be evil" motto doesn't imply Google is going to run around fighting moral causes that don't directly affect them. I get the impression that these days their goal on that front is to be steadfastly amoral rather than pro-actively moral, except where taking a more active stance aids the company's goals.
[+] [-] tensafefrogs|14 years ago|reply
"The EFF’s Trevor Timm said he was overall happy with Google’s arguments in the hearing, but he thought the use of WikiLeaks as an example and the company’s focus on “following the money” revealed that it was more interested in its own search business than in freedom of speech.”They seemed to be endorsing the way that payment processors and advertisers should be censoring sites,” said Timm. ”I think it really shows why they should have had more of a representation of people at the hearing. Google is looking out for its interests, but we’re looking out for the interest of everyone on the Internet. Categorizing Wikileaks as a rogue site isn’t something we agree with.”"
[+] [-] y3di|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skanuj|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zobzu|14 years ago|reply
sound better to me, but not good. i don't think its normal to cut ANY such service without a prior trial.
Be it your bank account or website. What about just expulsion from your own house? coming next, maybe. Welcome to the world where corporations control every bit, and where you don't own anything, you're merely licensed to use it, be it software of physical items (so again, house, or anything else)
[+] [-] betterth|14 years ago|reply
Americans are being foreclosed on in mass, and in some instances they've been forced out of their homes wrongly by a corporation who made a mistake (here's looking at you, BoA).
But with 50% of the mortgages in the country underwater, corporations taking houses is much more real than we want to admit.
[+] [-] Roritharr|14 years ago|reply
Owning something has become for many things the exception rather than the norm.
[+] [-] icebraining|14 years ago|reply
You would have a court determine that a site is infringing and serve orders on U.S.-based payment providers and advertising
A court only make the decision, not the corporations.
[+] [-] droithomme|14 years ago|reply
It seems to me this has been the goal since the beginning. If the bill was only about attacking the finances of sites, the discussion here would have been about how this is an attack on free speech. By bundling it with another issue to be given up as a token sacrifice, a goal they weren't even really interested in to begin with, they are able to get the public to support and even advocate their original goal, which otherwise few would have been in favor of.
[+] [-] jerguismi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VMG|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GHFigs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerostar07|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eogas|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: I don't think it will be very long (less than 15 years) before the content industries are dwindling, and regular people band together to replace it. It's already happening at a small scale.
[+] [-] icebraining|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brighton36|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maqr|14 years ago|reply
I think she was making the point that strangling the finances of "rogue" parties is very effective, and how Wikileaks was handled is a textbook example of that strategy in action.
I doubt she thought it was right or ethical. She said elsewhere in the hearing that Google supports cutting off finances with direction from courts. In any case, it does prove her point that cutting off finances is an effective strategy and can already be done without SOPA (or other new legislation).
[+] [-] bad_user|14 years ago|reply
I mean, OK, you want to "protect IP", but in case of a false positive add a note in there that the complainer should pay the affected party a sum proportional to the complainer's market cap, such as this (numbers pulled from my ass, but you get the point):
There you go. All is fair.[+] [-] mc32|14 years ago|reply
I don't see similar herculean efforts to deal with ordinary piracy, unless a framework were set-up. Would a society benefit from such a pan-national behemoth (assuming it would necessitate one)?
[+] [-] brighton36|14 years ago|reply