

Google: Financial Embargo Of WikiLeaks Shows How To Deal With Piracy - jwdunne
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/11/16/google-tells-congress-wikileaks-financial-embargo-shows-how-to-deal-with-web-piracy/

======
nextparadigms
I was kind of disappointed to hear that from a Google representative. I get
the feeling that Google cares only about covering their own asses, so even if
Congress votes an "evil" bill like this one, it's not their problem as long as
it doesn't affect them directly.

Which is fine, I suppose. You can't expect much more from a corporation. But
this is why I wanted an organization like EFF to be present at the hearing.
Someone who would actually care about other things, like Internet liberties,
besides protecting their own profits.

But those managing the hearing don't seem to care about issues like these at
all. All they care about if whether the bill helps protect some jobs on one
side (pro-SOPA) or helps destroy others or destroy new businesses (anti-SOPA).

The Internet is much more than a zero-sum game regarding jobs, and the
Government shouldn't be in the business of favoring one industry's jobs over
the other. Let them deal with their problems themselves, and not use tax payer
money to fix their problems, and kill or cripple another industry in the
process - without even mentioning all those liberty and censorship issues.

~~~
dspillett
_> so even if Congress votes an "evil" bill like this one, it's not their
problem as long as it doesn't affect them directly_

The "don't be evil" motto doesn't imply Google is going to run around fighting
moral causes that don't directly affect them. I get the impression that these
days their goal on that front is to be steadfastly amoral rather than pro-
actively moral, except where taking a more active stance aids the company's
goals.

~~~
danilocampos
> The "don't be evil" motto doesn't imply Google is going to run around
> fighting moral causes that don't directly affect them.

I think the issue here is more that Google decided to throw a lot of future
organizations under the bus by endorsing a different, equally draconian
measure that just happens to leave them untouched.

~~~
umarmung
Exactly.

Who is to say that these same measures could not be applied to Google itself
in future.

With such statements that amount to political activity by corporate
vigilantism, it is going down a slippery slope.

This is the kind of idea that you expect to see endorsed in a Third World
country or authoritarian/statist regime, not a supposedly advanced country
built on advanced social constructs.

For example, if copyright infringment trumps all other activity in society
including whistleblowing and journalism, then this should be enacted in law so
that everyone can understand their rights and responsiblities. A group of
companies differentially and unilaterally using their corporate or monopoly
power to eliminate businesses and organisations is an example of the market
creating rules for society instead of the other way around.

------
tensafefrogs
I agree 100% with the last paragraph:

"The EFF’s Trevor Timm said he was overall happy with Google’s arguments in
the hearing, but he thought the use of WikiLeaks as an example and the
company’s focus on “following the money” revealed that it was more interested
in its own search business than in freedom of speech.”They seemed to be
endorsing the way that payment processors and advertisers should be censoring
sites,” said Timm. ”I think it really shows why they should have had more of a
representation of people at the hearing. Google is looking out for its
interests, but we’re looking out for the interest of everyone on the Internet.
Categorizing Wikileaks as a rogue site isn’t something we agree with.”"

~~~
y3di
I might be looking at this wrong, but it seemed like Google was just pointing
out an example of how this tactic has been effective in the past. They don't
say anything about whether they condone the use of this strategy for the
specific case of Wikileaks.

~~~
bad_user
IMHO, what happened to Wikileaks is a clear attack on free speech for which
the companies involved should have been penalized. That this didn't happen
says a lot and Google should have chosen another way to get their point
across.

------
zobzu
"dont cut their websites, cut their food supply"

sound better to me, but not good. i don't think its normal to cut ANY such
service without a prior trial.

Be it your bank account or website. What about just expulsion from your own
house? coming next, maybe. Welcome to the world where corporations control
every bit, and where you don't own anything, you're merely licensed to use it,
be it software of physical items (so again, house, or anything else)

~~~
Roritharr
Actually that world is reality for many people. Think about it, how many
people do you know that own "their" car... most people i know just drive cars
on leasing plans, live for rent, and use a company computer and cellphone most
of the time.

Owning something has become for many things the exception rather than the
norm.

~~~
mc32
Do you think ownership was a 20th century anomaly, then? Prior to the 20th
century, ownership of most real property was owned by the landed classes. And
personal property was not that great for most people.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
If super-advanced aliens landed on our planet today and analyzed our
history... they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between today and
feudal times... there might be a blip of real ownership somewhere in the
early-middle part of this century but as things are progressing it'll be back
to business as usual for the aristocracy of tomorrow.

------
droithomme
It's interesting that by threatening to attack both DNS records and payment
processing without a trial or judicial review, everyone has jumped on board
the "compromise" that they are willing to accept payment processing take downs
of free speech sites without judicial review as long as the DNS records can be
saved. Which were never a real issue anyway since you can just switch to
offshore DNS servers, or switch to raw ip addresses as most of us did when
wikileaks.org was taken out.

It seems to me this has been the goal since the beginning. If the bill was
only about attacking the finances of sites, the discussion here would have
been about how this is an attack on free speech. By bundling it with another
issue to be given up as a token sacrifice, a goal they weren't even really
interested in to begin with, they are able to get the public to support and
even advocate their original goal, which otherwise few would have been in
favor of.

------
jerguismi
Actually, this is great. If visa/mastercard/banks etc will start blocking
heavily every shady business, these businesses will have to move to bitcoin
and other non-goverment-controlled currencies/payment systems. In the long run
this benefits us all.

~~~
VMG
... until _SOPA Reloaded_ kills Bitcoin

~~~
thebigshane
I think this is interesting... how would they be able to do so? They can make
it "illegal" I guess but there isn't a centralized entity to target. Right?

~~~
ansy
These sites that could use Bitcoin to evade the financial embargo would likely
break US money laundering laws. If not in the existing form then an easily
modified one.

Also, eventually coins need to turn into real money to pay rent, buy food, pay
for electricity. If your bank account is frozen that can be a big
inconvenience to doing those things. There would have to be some kind of
BitCoin for physical cash exchanges and you'd have to pay everything in cash.
Not a very scalable solution for even medium sized operations.

------
zerostar07
First, is this realistic? Most torrent sites advertise porn or malware, which
none of the big advertising companies serve anyway. Wikileaks doesn't use
advertising, but by popular demand they may raise money in any possible way,
even in cash from selling t-shirts. Very weak argument from Google

~~~
icebraining
Why would it have to be the big advertising companies? If there's ads, there's
a money trail - you just cutoff at that point. Torrent sites can be hosted in
some safe heaven or Tor site, but if they can't get money from the US and
other "cooperative" countries, they won't last much.

~~~
nitrogen
The further you go down that money trail, the more people and companies there
will be traveling it. The further from your target you cut off funding, the
more collateral damage you will inflict.

------
brighton36
If we were to clamp down on the Credit-card based revenue streams, that these
sites will simply switch to Bincoin... (Which is fine with me, FWIW)

------
maqr
I was watching the stream and my jaw dropped when I heard Oyama make the
reference to Wikileaks.

I think she was making the point that strangling the finances of "rogue"
parties is very effective, and how Wikileaks was handled is a textbook example
of that strategy in action.

I doubt she thought it was right or ethical. She said elsewhere in the hearing
that Google supports cutting off finances _with_ direction from courts. In any
case, it does prove her point that cutting off finances is an effective
strategy and can already be done without SOPA (or other new legislation).

------
bad_user
The problem with such proposals is the unfairness of it.

I mean, OK, you want to "protect IP", but in case of a false positive add a
note in there that the complainer should pay the affected party a sum
proportional to the complainer's market cap, such as this (numbers pulled from
my ass, but you get the point):

    
    
         - Microsoft: 1 billion USD
         - MPAA: 1 billion USD
         - RIAA: 500 million USD
    

There you go. All is fair.

------
mc32
Let's assume this is a viable method. Is this method scalable? It took
concerted effort by many financial institutions and gov'ts in order to pull
that off. And that was probably helped by the strong motivation afforded by
their anti-cause.

I don't see similar herculean efforts to deal with ordinary piracy, unless a
framework were set-up. Would a society benefit from such a pan-national
behemoth (assuming it would necessitate one)?

------
brighton36
If we were to clamp down on the Credit-card based revenue streams, these sites
will simply switch to Bincoin... (Which is fine with me, FWIW)

