Google Patents Country-Specific Content Blocking 106
theodp writes "Today Google was awarded US Patent No. 7,664,751 for its invention of Variable User Interface Based on Document Access Privileges, which the search giant explains can be used to restrict what Internet content people can see 'based on geographical location information of the user and based on access rights possessed for the document.' From the patent: 'For example, readers from the United States may be given "partial" access to the document while readers in Canada may be given "full" access to the document. This may be because the content provider has been granted full rights in the document from the publisher for Canadian readers but has not been granted rights in the United States, so the content provider may choose to only enable fair use display for readers in the United States.' Oh well, at least Google is 'no longer willing to continue censoring [their] results on Google.cn.'"
Patenting ACTA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2: Patent technologies and software logic that must follow to enforce ACTA.
Decision Gate A: Do you want to be stinking rich or fight for internet liberties? For stinking rich, proceed to step 3a. For valient political statement proceed to step 3b.
Step 3a: License patents under reasonable royalties and hire a legion of lawyers in countries around the world.
Step 3b: List licensing fees of one trillion dollars per patent and hire a legion of lawyers around the world to enforce it. Sit back and watch ACTA defeat itself (assuming it covers software intellectual property worldwide).
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Not in ACTA (Score:4, Informative)
Step 3b(I): Get forced to "grant" compulsory licenses in most countries which have that option in their patent system (for the common good, ofc).
The purpose of the parent's funny strategy (3b) is to let ACTA self-destroy on its own playground.
Of course some countries have way to circumvent too broad and/or stupid patents, but patents are not a problem in these countries to begin with because they can be circumvented.
But in country where all patent even the stupid one are followed, will have to follow that stupid patent too.
Until they start adding exception to their patent system, at which point the goal *is* achieved - If *Google* can be forced to give out a patent on a core technology of the web, any patent troll should be forced the same whenever they try to stifle fundamental and important innovation.
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it's common for companies to request a patent in multiple countries at once, and nothings tell you that they haven't tried for them.
getting patents out of ACTA (Score:1, Troll)
Getting patents out of ACTA is probably a very achievable goal. When we were working on an EU directive to criminalise violations of "IP", we raised a stink about the idea of becoming a criminal for violating any one of the 50,000 software patents which nobody could be expected to read.
That directive, like ACTA, was being pushed by the copyright industry. The second we make them nervous about the whole thing crumbling over patents, patents will disappear over night.
That's what's achievable, but
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Eminent domain applies to IP.
anyone pulling that crap would probably have his patent confiscated in the interests of national security.
Not Censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have to do business at all. (Score:2)
First of all they don't HAVE to do business in that country, they CHOOSE to.
Once enough developed countries adopt moralist access control laws (such as censorship laws in China or Australia) or protectionist access control laws (such as the copyright laws that leaked ACTA drafts appear to require), this becomes "First of all they don't HAVE to do business, they CHOOSE to." Then the Amish win :p
Even an Iranian business that must turn over dissidents for execution is still morally culpable for their role in that system.
What do you expect to do? Sponsor everyone's emigration from Iran?
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What do you mean "plotting"? They already left - just after Christmas! They'll be at the Pentagon in around April, give or take. You've been warned!
Re:They don't have to do business at all. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I would only remind the companies doing business there that the day may come when they have to answer for their actions. Personally, if I was in a position where I had to do stuff like turn in dissidents, I would quickly seek another line of work. Even if you're not worried about the moral implications, the day could easily come when the existing government is overthrown and you could find your neck on the bad end of a noose.
Obligation to turn in dissidents (Score:1, Flamebait)
Personally, if I was in a position where I had to do stuff like turn in dissidents, I would quickly seek another line of work.
Unless every line of work remotely related to what you're trained in carries an obligation to report certain acts to the police. For instance, teachers and medical professionals in the United States are obligated to report to the police their suspicions of "questionable disciplinary measures" applied by a child's parent. So it's either turn in one set of dissidents or emigrate to a country that requires turning in a different set of dissidents.
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technical maybe. But meaningless? I don't think so.
I don't think you could call it censorship if e.g. your company denies the janitors access to payroll documents.
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Can you give a similar example where access is denied 1) on the Internet, and 2) based on the country from which the request comes, which does not involve censorship?
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In my last company, our chinese sales guy had definitly more blocked documents when he logged in.
Perhaps it becomes censorship when published works are affected?
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It kind of looks like from the article that it's designed to be used to restrict access to content based on the wishes of the publisher, not of third parties like governments.
Of course it could be used to censor content, but google(and for that matter the governments themselves) can do that anyway. It's not like China can't(and doesn't) block access to certain web locations it doesn't want its citizens to see. It doesn't stop back channel distribution of course, but neither does this.
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I think this patent isn't about censorship but about copyright differences around the world and youtube/google books. If you look at different countries Project Gutenburg (I'm only familiar with the US, Canadian and Australian ones) you'll see a wide variety in what can be legally obtained in each country.
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It depends who provides the information. If it's government it's cencorship and generally bad, no matter how you try to brand it. If it's non-government entity then it's just business strategy and possibly bad only for the entity's reputation. In the first case, if you are not living in democratic country then you are out of luck. In the last case, well, you are out of luck :)
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What governing body do you think claims it has to think of the children for us because we might think of them in the wrong light? The governing body in question most probably influences law, and without people to speak out against their idiocy, they dictate our permissions.
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If countryFromIP(IP) = 'CA' then
response.write "My content"
else
response.redirect("sorry for canucks only")
end if
I have web applications that make extensive use of country specific branching. For example the name of the region I live has a name that is similar to one in Australia. So if the user's IP is from Australia I place a link at the top of the page to a partnering site in AU. If someone is posting a classified ad I reject it if they are not from Canada (its a local site).
So i
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Strictly speaking, this is access control, not censorship. Censorship is prohibiting access based upon some moral or other judgment about the content itself. Access control is restricting the ability to obtain content based upon permissions.
No, access control IS censorship. So is not allowing US citizens to read a book because the publisher doesn't want to grant the rights. However, if Google can make a book available to someone in Canada they want to.
On the patent front, remember:
Google is proud to take part in the following technical and advocacy organizations ... Open Invention Network is an intellectual property company that was formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative environment. It is refining the intellectual property model so that important patents are openly shared in a collaborative environment.
Prior art (Score:2)
Yay ! (Score:5, Funny)
I just filed a patent today too ... if it pans out, I'm gonna be rich.
"A method by which the mechanisms described in US Patent No. 7,664,751 can be circumvented by any fool who has access to a proxy server, thus making the payment of any licensing fees to Google an exercise in futility".
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Well apart from the obvious "open" proxy lists like Samair etc, you could always just Google for a Virtual Private Server with Unlimited Bandwidth for about $8 a month.
Whether it's really unlimited or if they cut you off after 28 days for abusing the policy, for $8 you can afford to swap to a different provider every month. Any that supports PHP or CGI should be enough to whack out a little proxy script to do you downloading for you, either real time or temporarily cached in the 50 or so Mb of disk space th
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I'd like to add that my internet connection is absolute crap, but I can use YouTube and Pandora with absolutely no problem through Tor.
Now never licence or use it. (Score:2)
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I do not think that means what you think it means ... if the boys with the big toys decide they want us to be free for less than 17 years, then there's nothing a Google pwned patent can do. Capisce?
Video and Books (Score:2)
Google may not intend to use this patent. (Score:2, Funny)
This may seem like a far stretch, but what if Google's intentions with this patent were in fact to disallow anyone from doing that? It seems rather surprising to me that the giant would suddenly switch sides like this, so I'll hope for the best.
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It's not really switching sides, even if they do use it. This is more the people who give Google certain content not allowing it in one place or another. Or laws being more complicated or whatever b.s. is involved in the political realm of it. But this seems to be more about following copyright law more thoroughly as opposed to following any censorship laws.
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So, with the current growth of people trying to make money out of advertisement, then Apple came with its patents. With the explosion of people making money with locked devices, why not profit out of it?
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First, IAAPL (I Am A Patent Lawyer).
In order to prevent someone from patenting and abusing a technology, there is no need to get the patent yourself. Simply publishing a document about the technology in sufficient detail (i.e. what you would disclose in the patent) creates prior art, preventing anyone from patenting that technology. To ensure the USPTO (or any other patent office) sees the article, make it as public as possible. This creates the prior art, invalidating the patent application on novelty and/
Ok, Google is really starting to creep me out... (Score:1)
Can anyone suggest a decent provider for email that doesn't have the privacy concerns? Should I just suck it up and move to my ISP's mail? Calendar and all that I can do without and find alternatives for easily enough, but setting up my own mail server is a fair bit beyond my experience...
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Is it that big a pain to set up with decent security? I've looked at running one on the Ubuntu box I have at home (supposed to be a fancy server, but it's just a network drive at the moment), but from what I've read, the process scares me--it took me two full weekends just to get the samba shares working right and with what I hope are the proper permissions and group settings, and I spent a full day last weekend trying to get apcupsd to talk to my UPS (I get "on battery" and "power restored" messages, but
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Is it that big a pain to set up with decent security?
It is not easy. A professional can do it without much pain, because he already knows what goes where. But if you have no such experience you may make mistakes that will cost you.
Generally mail servers aren't that bad to configure (unless you want sendmail.) Some are easier than other; I like Postfix. You probably want an IMAP server too. But one problem you need to solve is spam control. Google, however evil it may have become, has a good spam filter
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He said posting from a windows machine (Score:2)
Quick, tell me, you being creeped out, has that stopped you from using Windows? No?
Rather selective in your creeping out aren't you?
Notice that MS has NO problems censoring with Bing. Neither does MS link to chillingeffects when it is forced to censor something.
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First, I'm trying to move from windows as much as possible. This process is made difficult by the excruciating difficulty of relearning an entirely new OS and the consequent hours spent on every step of the process (see my other post regarding my home server). Don't think I'll ever move away from it completely, though, as I have a few programs for which there is no linux version available at all or within my price range, and no equivalent product exists. But for most tasks (ie, everything outside of CAD,
Safe-mail (Score:2)
You may want to have a look at Safe-mail [safe-mail.net]. It has a nice clean interface like Gmail does.
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Not to mention that the top 10 online video service sites other than YouTube already have this implemented in some way too.
So does Youtube. They have been offering streamed movies and TV series for a while now. Some are not available in the UK, so regional restrictions are already in force. The user submitted stuff may be unlimited, but Youtube does way more than that these days.
Not so, Google has reinstituted blocking in China (Score:5, Informative)
A month after the much discussed attack on Google, google.cn continues to censor search results, though it appears to be less than prior to this incident. Ref. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/10/google_china/ [theregister.co.uk]
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tank man [google.cn]
falun gong [google.cn]
Seems to be right.... The reason that LESS images of tank man show up in the
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Have you tried searching those queries from within China? Google does know how to do IP geolocation, you know.
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So it is sort of part way between their old position and their big change of heart. (From what I've heard, I never tried to proxy before.). Wish I checked by proxy over the last weeks.
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Hey, but at least they're now the only ones allowed to do it!
(Yes, I know everything that was wrong with that statement.)
No mechanism proposed (Score:3, Interesting)
The patent makes no sense, because it includes no description of a mechanism for achieving the stated objective. You should be able to get a patent on a particular method of doing something, but since when can you patent all possible methods of doing something? Especially when there aren't any. We have been doing this at work for over a decade, using IP address information from whois servers. It isn't very accurate, but it works well enough for us.
Daniel Feenberg
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The patent makes no sense, because it includes no description of a mechanism for achieving the stated objective. You should be able to get a patent on a particular method of doing something, but since when can you patent all possible methods of doing something? Especially when there aren't any. We have been doing this at work for over a decade, using IP address information from whois servers. It isn't very accurate, but it works well enough for us.
No, it's got a pretty decent description, sufficient that one of ordinary skill in the art of computer programming could implement it, without undue experimentation. What, you want code?
Time to rearchitect the net (Score:2, Interesting)
To protect the free flow of information which is at the core of a free society and an efficient and stable economy, location information must be eliminated from the network protocol.
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Enforce It (Score:2)
Do less evil. (Score:1)
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Mod this up if you're sick and tired of the "Do No Evil" hype. Google didn't start that so they shouldn't be blamed of hypocrisy on account of that.
(Then it's a completely separate issue what kind of company they are or purport to be. No comment on that in this post.)
AWESOME IDEA (Score:2)
Oh and it needn't be used to do extra censoring to hurt freedom of sp
Re:AWESOME IDEA (Score:4, Insightful)
...all you need is a proxy to see anything...
Great. All we have to do is maintain proxies in nations all over the world, and we can be treated fairly. Now if we could just teach everyone on the planet how to use international proxies, no one would be victimized by censorship. Surely governments will never try to close *this* hole. I feel like the world is a better place already due to poor implementations of evilness.
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Also, not everyone needs access to the proxies, proxies are hol
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Honestly I think Google wants to follow local laws rather than the laws of everyone at the same time, or perhaps just American laws. Google books is disheartening for me in Canada because books that are out of copyright are blocked
"I hope you're right." - me too haha....
And I don't think the patent means anything
How is this different? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Need better granularity (Score:2)
Content filtering at the nation-state level. Yawn.
How about content filtering at the individual consciousness level? Show me what I wish to see, and nothing else.
Poison Pill (Score:1)
Patenting censorship. How can this be bad?
So, Mister Ballmer, if you want to filter Chinese search engine results, you must license our patent. The license will only cost you ten schmazillion dollars.
What? The price is too high? Then I'm afraid you won't be able to legally filter your results, now will you?
What? You don't think this is a valid patent? Maybe all business process patents are invalid. Let's litigate it.
. . . and so on . . . or maybe something far less hopeful.
Previous art (Score:3, Funny)
Can they do the same for Yawni? (Score:2)
Google Patents Country-Specific Content Blocking
Cool. I'm glad someone's taking a stand for decent music everywhere.
Adsense patent from 2002 is prior art (Score:1)
For example, if the content of the advertisement includes "Buy honda cars at the lowest prices of the year!", the terms "honda" or "honda cars" may be extracted from that content. The targeting information may also include other demographic information, such as geographic location, affluence, etc. Thus, the targeting information is simply some information from which a topic may be derived.
. . .
Among the other things that could be provided by an advertiser through ad entry and management component 210 are the following: one or more advertising creatives (simply referred to as "ads" or "advertisements"), one or more set of keywords or topics associated with those creatives (which may be used as targeting information for the ads), geographic targeting information, a value indication for the advertisement, start date, end date, etc.
Do What I Say, Not What I Do (Score:1)
Prior art (Score:1, Troll)
This has been going on for years namely any time anyone tries to download content that the the US government considers military in nature including encryption software.
whatever (Score:1)
Olympic Games (Score:2)
Hah!
This reminded me of something I saw on TV the other day. Some sporter got interviewed live by a reporter/TV anchor over a satellite link after winning a medal and asked if he had already seen the recording of his race on the [TV station]'s website. He replied that he tried but failed, because they blocked access from Canada to the media on the [TV station]'s website. That was obviously not in the script as the reporter was lost for words for a few moments.
Same thing happens with Britons trying to view t