A Belgian court's decision that prohibits Google from archiving a Francophone media group's news content is limited to within the borders of that country and will not affect any South African users, Google says.
Google's European corporate communications manager, Jessica Powell, says most publishers choose to have their Web sites indexed by search engines because they believe it is important for users to be able to find them on the Internet.
"I can assure you that we get far more requests for inclusion rather than exclusion. Google News now includes articles from over 10 000 news sources worldwide. Even publishers that charge for their content ask us to index their articles so that readers can find them," Powell adds.
Disputed precedent
Media reports last week said the Brussels Court of First Instance had ruled in favour of Copiepresse, a copyright protection group representing 17 mostly French-language newspapers. It complained the search engine's "cached" links offered free access to archived articles that the papers usually sell.
"Google is reproducing and publishing works protected by copyright," it ruled. "Google cannot call on any exceptions set out by law relating to copyright or similar rights."
"This means that if anyone in SA goes to Google.be or Google News and enters one of the Copiepresse publications into the search bar, those publications will not turn up because we were required to remove them," says Powell. "Try searching for the publication Le Soir on Google.be and it won't turn up. It will turn up on Google.com or Google.sa though."
The reports added that the ruling, if confirmed, could set a precedent for how Web search engines link to copyrighted material. However, the company behind the world's most-used search engine disputes this.
Disappointed with ruling
"We assert that we complied with the court order in full and that [last week's] ruling [confirming a September decision] didn't call for any additional measures. Further, the ruling affects Copiepresse... only," says Google spokesperson Ema Linaker. "It does not extend to other courts in Belgium, or to other countries."
Linaker adds Google has 55% of the South African search market.
Google says sites that deny it access do not bar users per se, but rather do not allow the Web site to show up in its search engine index. "To give you a concrete example, say a Web site XYZ (www.xyz.com) decides it doesn't want the general public to have access to its site via a search engine. XYZ can tell search engines 'don't index my site' via existing technical standards like robots.txt or metatags," says Powell.
"As a result, XYZ's Web page will not show up in the search engine results. It's still on the Web, but it's not visible on the search engine. Of course, you could type www.xyz.com directly into a browser and you would be able to reach it."
Google says it will appeal the ruling. "We were disappointed with the ruling because we believe Google.be and Google News provide great value and critical information to Internet users," adds Powell.
Meanwhile, Copiepresse is taking aim at Yahoo and MSN, accusing them of similar copyright infringements. It is also encouraging copyright groups in other European jurisdictions to launch lawsuits.
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