Belgian court says "non" to Google News

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 14 February 2007 04:51

Your IT - Home IT

Most court decisions seem to support deep linking providing there is no attempt by the linker to pass off the linked page as its own.

The other activity addressed by the case is Google's practice of caching web content. While this makes it easier for people to find older content, it is in conflict with news organisations that want to restrict access to their archives to paying customers.

This highlights one of the ways traditional print publishers are hobbled by old business models. On one hand, they don't want to give up the revenue they currently get from a small number of customers (mainly corporates, I suspect) that are prepared to pay for access to the archives. Yet online advertising is becoming increasingly important, so who is to say that opening the archives to the general public on an ad-supported basis wouldn't be just as profitable?

Since mechanisms already exist to tell search engines not to index or cache web pages, the question is really whether the model should be 'opt in' or 'opt out'. Given that corporate interests have in the main ensured that Government restrictions on telemarketing revolve around "Do Not Call" rather than "OK To Call" lists, to give just one example, it seems a bit rich that a group of companies should complain about having to opt out of web search.

Google potentially faces daily fines of €25,000 if it does not comply with the Belgian court's ruling. It claims is Belgian sites have been in compliance since last September, but apparently takes the position that its other sites around the world are not affected.

The company said it will appeal the verdict.

Google already faces similar action from Agence France Presse (AFP) in France and the US. The Belgian decision could prompt further cases in other European Union countries.