Google Sued by French Press Agency
Published by Picturesque on Monday, March 21, 2005 at 10:17 AM.
Google has been sued by Agence France Presse (AFP), a French press agency. Google's news service takes and gleans information from various news sites including their content and photos. Google then serves up this content with their ads. This is a legal gray area so many will be watching this case.
Picture how you'd feel if someone was copying content from your site. Now picture that you are trying to sell advertising on that site. Picture how upset your advertisers would be that their ads are not being seen by everyone reading those web pages. You can see why a number of companies are upset with Google's news "service".
Unlike real news services, Google has no news personel out beating the pavement to write original stories. Instead they gather everyone else's stories and show them as a "news search service". While it may be benefical in some aspect, to the companies doing the leg work, it goes beyond being a search engine and crosses the threshold into theft.
Picture how you'd feel if someone was copying content from your site. Now picture that you are trying to sell advertising on that site. Picture how upset your advertisers would be that their ads are not being seen by everyone reading those web pages. You can see why a number of companies are upset with Google's news "service".
Unlike real news services, Google has no news personel out beating the pavement to write original stories. Instead they gather everyone else's stories and show them as a "news search service". While it may be benefical in some aspect, to the companies doing the leg work, it goes beyond being a search engine and crosses the threshold into theft.
Links to this post