Posts About ‘legal’

Linking can mean a breach of copyright and privacy says judge

links-london

A remarkable ruling in The Netherlands today where a judge decided that one of the most popular websites in the country which linked to content which was ‘leaked’ is guilty of breach of copyright as well as breach of privacy. The ruling could potentially have a big impact on online journalism.

The website GeenStijl.nl, which is a controversial, but very popular site in the Netherlands, last year placed a link to photo’s of a Dutch celebrity of a photoshoot for the Dutch version of Playboy. The photos were according to GeenStijl leaked by someone inside the offices of the publisher, which makes the ruling even more remarkable. (more…)

By Who and Why Google got Sued

intro-Google-darkside

Not everybody likes Google. Last week we saw how the different acquisitions Google made were received and how Google got some claims against them.

But if you take a closer look you’ll find a lot more. Searchenginejournal did look further and made this infographic about “Google’s darkside”. Who sued Google and why? Did you know for example that Google got sued by a California woman for damages after she got hit by a car after following directions from Google Maps making her drive against traffic? (more…)

Google admits to whitelisting sites: endangering their European legal issues?

manual-changes

In a panel at SMX West, which has been going on in San Jose last week, both Google and Bing admitted that they have lists on which websites appear that should not be hit by algorithms. They themselves call it “exception lists” but in more general terms they could also be called Whitelists. This remark, which without a doubt was not intended to be harmful, might just harm the legal battle which Google is fighting in Europe.

The term whitelist is used by amongst others Foundem, who filed a complaint with the European corporate counsel about Google in 2006. The complaint was about how some vertical search engines got hit and others didn’t. That complaint is now being handled by the commission. And Google European corporate counsel Julia Holtz said in Brussels that the company doesn’t “whitelist or blacklist anyone”. Were they lying then or are they lying now? (more…)

UK OFT Judgement Could Have Impact On Linkbuilding

In an interesting development that could have wide-ranging repercussions for UK linkbuilders, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has taken action against a company (Handpicked Media) that paid bloggers to write promotional blog posts, comments, and tweets.

While writing promotional material is not misleading in and of itself, what the OFT did have a problem with was that these posts/comments/tweets did not include a statement that they were paid for. The OFT concluded that this was misleading and against the Consumer Protection Act.

(more…)