Why is Google Censoring Search Results to Nix Warnings Just Like Ones Issued by a UK Regulator?

Subscribe to Post Comments

34 comments

1. s spade November 5, 2013 at 3:30 am

   Does anyone know what this post is about? I tried reading it twice and gave up. Must be really important, to somebody.
   1. Yves Smith November 5, 2013 at 3:43 am

      Wow, your reading comprehension is that poor? You are actually admitting that? That suggests you are a perfect target for the sort of scams Richard Smith has been documenting.
      1. Min November 5, 2013 at 2:01 pm

         Well, I just skimmed the post, and I could not tell what it was about. That tells me that it is poorly organized. I should be able to skim it and get enough of an idea about it that I know whether I want to read more closely or not.
   2. participant-observer-observed November 5, 2013 at 4:48 am

      Well, one thing you have to know for the post to have significance is that the UK has unique libel laws compared to the USA, for example, and therefore parties and their lawyers will more easily find compelling reasons for filing anti-defamation cases.

      Another fact that makes this story significant is recent reports of Google’s pretend “offense” at its role as an active agent of the US gov’t, for example.

      (See yesterday’s story about Google at the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/04/seric-schmidt-nsa-spying-data-centres-outrageous, and the link to remarks about Google by J Assange supplied in the comments, http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm)

      Kerry was smoozhing with the Saudis yesterday, Dubai’s neighbor; it could be interesting to learn how much time Eric Schmidt and/or his ex girlfriend Lisa Shields spend hanging around the Arabian peninsula too. How much any of this has to do with preventing Syrian/Middle East/West Asia conflicts becoming WWIII, inciting gas speculators/Goldman/TBTFs et al, are further questions we can ask ourselves, among others.

      It is valid to request significance; you are on a sane track to question it.
      1. Nathanael November 13, 2013 at 4:47 pm

         Oh, Google execs actually are offended.

         Never make the “conspiracy theorist” mistake of assuming that everyone in the power elite is working together. The history of the world tells us that they’re usually bitter enemies of each other.
   3. Teejay November 5, 2013 at 7:06 am

      To: S Spade
      Google Co. UK (afraid of getting sued for defamation) is censoring from search results of Advanced Global Trading (AGT) a warning from the UK regulator(FCA)that AGT is running a ponzi scheme. A blogger redd-monitor cleverly up loaded the FCA warning so that when AGT is “googled” up comes the warning as well.
      Richard Smith has sent an open letter to Google Co. UK
      saying WTF. OK he didn’t quit say it that way. He concluded with:
      8. This blog would like to know whether, on the basis of the information provided here, you intend to restore redd-monitor’s blog post excerpts to google.co.uk’s search results, or alternatively, remove the warnings made by the UK’s financial regulator from google.co.uk’s search results, since, by construction, they are just as defamatory as anything redd-monitor has published.

      9. This blog offers a gentle hint: the second choice would be an idiotic mistake.
      Smith included the legal defamation complaint from AGT legal counsel in an appendix.
      1. s spade November 5, 2013 at 9:20 am

         Thanks. It’s really easier to understand when you bother to explain it. Of course, it’s easier to just throw stuff up on the wall and whine.
         1. Richard Smith November 5, 2013 at 11:13 am

            Throwing stuff up against the wall and whining? Tsk, tsk.

            It is all carefully organised and not at all whiny; it just isn’t finished yet. Patience!

            While you wait for the conclusion, perhaps this will help:

            http://www.redd-monitor.org/2013/11/05/naked-capitalism-shines-a-spotlight-on-carbon-neutral-investments/
   4. Mcmike November 5, 2013 at 8:59 am

      I sympathize with spade, to the extent that the cited blog entry (letter?) itself was not particularly well written, and the inclusion of the complaint rendered the thing unreadable on a smartphone. (Oh my god, I have been infected with modern reading habits).

      I can see how a reader who was not already following NC’s pursuit of this story might be left behind; since this particular entry requires a certain amount of prerequite familiarity with the story.

      Yves introductory transition also, perhaps, was not her best. At least given the above. Despite tracking NC’s coverage, and even after re-reading the letter a couple times, I am still left wondering what exactly they are trying to prove. (And I confess only skimming the complaint, but I do feel as if I am joining an avant garde play already in progress).

      Sorry Yves, I appreciate what you do. Perhaps being on the leading edge of this story, you are a bit out in front of some readers? This one is fairly “inside baseball.”
2. JL Furtif November 5, 2013 at 5:12 am

   I knew Youtube removes content when one complains about copyright infringement. But Google removing search results?
   1. Richard Smith Post authorNovember 5, 2013 at 5:25 am

      That isn’t quite what happens with search. The usual Google search result will include some text from the web page that Google has found. The ‘censored’ results just give the web page and no excerpt.

      That way, for one thing, Google itself feels less likely be accused of republishing some defamation.

      Of course, the odd-looking results can make those links more conspicuous, rather than less.

      This is Google trying to navigate ever changing waters: free speech vs defamation, in multiple jurisdictions.
      1. Yves Smith November 5, 2013 at 5:56 am

         The point is that it does it in a knee-jerk manner. Had Google done even a cursory search of its own, it would have seen the FCA notices. But that would be work, it can’t be bothered.

         This might not be so bad if there was a way for the affected sites to reach Google and say (not quite so directly) “You are being pushed around by a scammer, even the British regulators are saying bad things about these dudes, and this material is just a rehash of that.” But not only can you not get a live person at Google, but you can’t even find a place on their site or a real process to reach someone to get this sort of thing resolved.
         1. skippy November 5, 2013 at 7:04 am

            Did someone say Google? Watch this~

            http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3883771.htm

            Skippy… helping attack judges now….
            1. skippy November 5, 2013 at 4:06 pm

               Per link above see: Michael Roberts :

               04 Nov 2013 11:01:00pm

               I have published a video with my theory on why Google ranks garbage results high in its search results for a person’s name:

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMTCCT_NtBk

               Furthermore, a flawed USA law is what allows Google to get away with it and project the trashy results globally. I published a 4 minute video here explaining:

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hjdopsyXOY

               Respectfully submitted:
               Michael Roberts
               Brisbane Asutralia
               Internet Victim’s Advocate, Forensic Analyst and Litigation Support Consultant
               Licensed Private Investigator # 3589109
               Journalist # A 10450 LAPC
               http://www.rexxfield.com

               Section 230C Communications Decency Act.

               Published on Jul 4, 2012

               Please sign this petition to the US Congress to Change this flawed law:

               https://www.change.org/petitions/the-…

               State Sponsored Cyber Terrorism: Section 230C of the Communications Decency Act is a failed experiment in Internet industry self-regulation. Silicon valley’s faceless giants turn a blind eye to the social, financial and emotional paralysis that befalls victims of internet harassment and defamation.

               skippy… personally I would not use the terminology – failed – law. The people what write this stuff are not morons….
3. Mcmike November 5, 2013 at 8:15 am

   Google has become unusable. It not only crowds out legitimate results with paid placements, but it obviously represses some results entirely. Google is not an impartial automatic search, it imposes increasingly heavy judgements on results, mainly commercially motivated, but clearly politically motivated too. Google of course controls youtube too.

   Facebook follows a similar mindset/model. Twitter cannot be far behind.

   The coopting of the internet is essentially complete after herding everyone to these couple places. The authorities have of course noticed too.
   1. MRW November 5, 2013 at 11:47 am

      Mcmike is correct. We have not had accurate searches since Feb 2011 when Google changed its algorithm. If you want something more, use DuckDuckGo or if you use a Mac, use DEVONAgent, which has a learning curve but it can dig up stuff you never knew existed. [There is actually a setting for such deep search that it can take all night, but you will be shocked!] The problem with DEVONAgent is that it doesn’t use a lot of Safari conventions and is therefore a pain in the ass.

      The only thing you are doing using Google to search these days is rounding out their advertising profile on you for them, monetizing yourself like an idiot. They are a piece of shit organization. The Google Prez is so out to lunch he’s muffling comments about NSA that “if it’s true” NSA is siphoning off his pipes, then isn’t that horrible. WHICH MEANS THE GUY DOESN’T KNOW. What manufacturing Prez doesn’t know someone has put a hammer in the conveyor belt, or rerouted the shipping routes?
      1. just me November 5, 2013 at 1:50 pm

         I have wondered about Naked Capitalism’s Google search box. I left a late comment on the site redesign post wondering if there’s an alternative: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/nc-fundraiser-coming-soon-plus-see-alpha-version-of-our-site-redesign.html#comment-1481569

         The other day I wanted to find a past NC story. I searched “Sandy Harry Shearer” in the search box – the most obvious words I could recall. It did not find the story at all, though did give some other confusing fluff. Then I went outside to duckduckgo and searched the same thing with “site: nakedcapitalism.com” added. The story I was looking for was the top result: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/harry-shearer-preventing-another-sandy-the-lessons-new-orleans-can-teach-new-jersey.html

         Is it just me? Does anyone else want to try this test and report back?
   2. ChrisCairns November 5, 2013 at 3:25 pm

      Evil American company. Used to be my go to place when I wanted something, but all the paid ads finally get to you. My reading of NC has helped me to realise that the company just wants my money rather than to help me find useful stuff. Using DuckDuck now until it shows its true colors…
      1. participant-observer-observed November 6, 2013 at 2:44 am

         Meanwhile, innovation goes on life support!

         One day (if we are lucky) we could look back on these dark days as the inspiration for expressions of genius that will transcend it and the small minded short sighted “technology giants” of today will be remembered as tricky-dick Nixons.
         “http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/dark-mail/”

         “Ladar Levison, founder of the now shuttered secure email provider Lavabit, has taken to Kickstarter to resurrect the concept of secure email in a new, open source form, called the project Dark Mail initiative. A not-for-profit organisation called the Dark Mail Alliance, with Lavabit …”
4. Drew November 5, 2013 at 8:19 am

   I would guess the reason Google has reacted so quickly and removed the content in response to a defamation lawsuit is because of the potential legal costs of not removing the content.

   In the UK the party accused of defamation bears the burden of proof to show that his/her statements are in fact true.

   So, in the UK this legal notice feels akin to a DMCA takedown notice in the US. Completely different legal issues–I know. But the potential cost of not taking down content is so much greater than any cost that might be incurred by taking down the content erroneously that the lawyers advised compliance.

   Is my theory way off base?
5. Banger November 5, 2013 at 8:58 am

   Google is fast becoming a real player in world politics as one would expect. Organization grow in power if they can in part to protect themselves from other predators and in part because that is how life functions. I consider large corporations as virtual life-forms.

   What makes this situation unique is that Google is a sort of Baron of Information–they mediate what we see and here much like the mainstream media who obviously skew information for their own political ends.

   This story has resonance, I believe, because it shows that the old anarchic/libertarian ideals of the internet as “neutral” grounds is, like the “free-market” a myth. The need to manipulate information always, always trumps any idea of free speech, which like free markets does not and cannot exist.

   I’m not outraged in any way by this trend but think this is obviously a good policy from Google’s POV. What’s good for Google, of course, has nothing whatever to do with what is good for the public–that good is up for the public to determine.
   1. McMike November 5, 2013 at 9:11 am

      As I mention above, Facebook does it too. Even more shamelessly. FB literally refuses to show you all the updates from your friends and liked businesses. They claim (with straight face we presume) that they are doing this for your own good – to protect you from having to wade through too many entries. But there is literally no seting that allows you to decide what you see with 100% consistency. It is obviously in fact an effort to preserve space for paid placements, and to punish businesses with FB pages that have not paid for placements.

      Internet simulacra.
      – It started with open information and people immersing themselves in all of it and 100% user controlled; and open architecture controlled by public and public-minded organizations.
      – Then: it segregated into narrow tribes, albeit still fairly open; commercial control emerges.
      – Then: certain tribes gained dominance and started mediating user access and control; and the architecture became more restricted.
      – Now we are moving to stage four simulacra: a (literally) handful of providers decides what you see and when, and alternatives are snuffed out or literally shut down; and the architecture is nearly under single (effectively offical) control.
      1. s spade November 5, 2013 at 5:18 pm

         I cannot imagine why anyone would use facebook, or twitter either. Can you explain that?
6. Brooklin Bridge November 5, 2013 at 10:00 am

   Net neutrality has more than just Google to worry about today,
   Net neutrality is a dead man walking

   Or if you prefer to see the URL,
   http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/so-the-internets-about-to-lose-its-net-neutrality/

   If I’ve understood correctly, and that is far from certain, Google has now invested a considerable chunk of money in the physical backbone of the internet, so one would assume it has crossed the “do no harm” tracks entirely and would be pretty much in favor of being able to control and manage people’s access to sites legally in any manner it chooses.
   1. Mcmike November 5, 2013 at 10:49 am

      (a) Google’s business model is based on monetizing user traffic by driving users to paid features and forcing them to receive paid messages.

      (b) In that context, unpaid traffic is not only annoying and a distraction to Google, but it reduces their potential total revenue and “freeloads” by piggybacking on their cost structures.

      (c) Much of that unpaid traffic tends towards content that is threatening to elites, government, the status quo, and Google’s business model itself. Making it less attractive strategically as well as economically.

      (d) Official surveillance obsession has led to official subsidy and encouragement of centralized control of the internet by like-minded or compliant providers.

      (e) Centralization and official control of the internet has led to legitimization of such concepts as social media filtering and kill switches for security purposes. Opening the door to the legitimization of censorship and access control for all purposes.

      (f) In this era of brazen restraint of trade, repression of free speech, and privatization of public assets, there are no bars to amassing monopoly control, and great rewards.

      (g) Cheap federal money policy and low corporate tax regimes have created the opportunity for inexpensive heavy investment by corporations in terms or hoarding hard assets and solidifying market domination on the cheap.

      Do the math. Not only is net neutrality dead; this marks the culmination of privatization of the internet.

      Mark my words, the herding of independent activity to cloud based providers and social media sites will soon be proven to be a huge mistake – a sick irony that it was “sold” as enhancing freedom and choice, when in fact it is akin to sheep being encircled by dogs into the pen outside the killing floor.
      1. just me November 5, 2013 at 2:12 pm

         From “Why I Left Google” by James Whittaker:

         http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/13/why-i-left-google.aspx

         The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

         Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn’t feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers.

         […]

         It turns out that there was one place where the Google innovation machine faltered and that one place mattered a lot: competing with Facebook… Like the proverbial hare confident enough in its lead to risk a brief nap, Google awoke from its social dreaming to find its front runner status in ads threatened.

         […]

         Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.

         […]

         As it turned out, sharing was not broken. Sharing was working fine and dandy, Google just wasn’t part of it… Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn’t invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation. The fact that no one came to Google’s party became the elephant in the room.

         Google+ and me, we were simply never meant to be. Truth is I’ve never been much on advertising. I don’t click on ads. When Gmail displays ads based on things I type into my email message it creeps me out. I don’t want my search results to contain the rants of Google+ posters (or Facebook’s or Twitter’s for that matter). When I search for “London pub walks” I want better than the sponsored suggestion to “Buy a London pub walk at Wal-Mart.”
         1. McMike November 5, 2013 at 3:33 pm

            Great link, thanks.

            As I said in a post above, we are unfortunately in the fourth stage of internet simulacra. Google is in perhaps the third stage (it still at least pretends to be a search engine, even if it no longer functions as one).
      2. Brooklin Bridge November 5, 2013 at 6:26 pm

         @Mcmike,

         Very nice summary, (a) – (g).
7. mary November 5, 2013 at 2:02 pm

   Happy Guy Fawkes Day / Bonfire Night

   “a penny for the guy?”
   1. Clive November 5, 2013 at 2:36 pm

      Can’t remember now from school history if Guy Fawkes was one of the good guys or the bad guys in trying to blow up parliament but hey, enjoy the fireworks !
      1. fajensen November 6, 2013 at 8:55 am

         My Scottish colleagues used to say that “down south” they celebrated the prevention of a terrorist atrocity, while “up north” they all celebrated the fresh initiative …
   2. Dan Kervick November 5, 2013 at 3:02 pm

      He is completely de-contextualized in the movie that seems to have captured the attention of so many people: presented as just some random freedom fighter who wanted to blow up the king.
      1. just me November 5, 2013 at 7:45 pm

         Wanted to blow up Parliament, the way I saw it.

         It was great! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-gHVGOoE48

         ( #millionmaskmarch: http://www.correntewire.com/happy_november_v_loving_the_millionmaskmarch )
8. Charles Edward Frith (@charlesfrith) November 8, 2013 at 5:31 am

   Lots of information is censored by Google. This is standard for those who are used to researching restricted topics.

Comments are closed.