Animal Science

journo-geekery:

US judge orders hundreds of sites “de-indexed” from Google, Facebook

After a series of one-sided hearings, luxury goods maker Chanel has won recent court orders against hundreds of websites trafficking in counterfeit luxury goods. A federal judge in Nevada has agreed that Chanel can seize the domain names in question and transfer them all to US-based registrar GoDaddy. The judge also ordered “all Internet search engines” and “all social media websites”—explicitly naming Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Bing, Yahoo, and Google—to “de-index” the domain names and to remove them from any search results.

The case has been a remarkable one. Concerned about counterfeiting, Chanel has filed a joint suit in Nevada against nearly 700 domain names that appear to have nothing in common. When Chanel finds more names, it simply uses the same case and files new requests for more seizures. (A recent November 14 order went after an additional 228 sites; none had a chance to contest the request until after it was approved and the names had been seized.)

Via Hillary Hartley on G+, where she adds, “Why wait for SOPA?”

This is a disturbing turn.  This is a case where Chanel is pretty clearly in the right (as long as you accept copyright law to be legitimate), and shutting down counterfeit jewelery sites isn’t going to affect me personally.  The precedent that sets, however, probably will. We’ve now legally established that corporations have a right to regulate ordinary people’s ability to browse the internet in such a way that maximizes their profits.  I don’t know that I want to know where this is going to lead.