
US judge orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook - gigawatt
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/us-judge-orders-hundreds-of-sites-de-indexed-from-google-twitter-bing-facebook.ars
======
danilocampos
Look.

I know it's HN and we're all very serious business here.

And I'm not trying to be age-ist – my condemnation is strictly confined to
mental state.

But _what. the fuck_. do we do with these dinosaurs who know nothing of
technology policy but have decided to go and make it _anyway_? What do we do?
The strategy of waiting for them to retire or whatever doesn't seem to be
paying off.

~~~
JonnieCache
We need to invent the following things so we can be forever truly free:

1) A secure, peer to peer DNS system with no registrars and a dynamic,
heterarchical network of trust.

2) An encrypted version of TCP that we can drop in without anyone noticing.

3) A way of distributing keys for our encrypted transport layer without
certificate authorities and again with a dynamic, heterarchical network of
trust.

4) A secure, peer to peer, _federated_ social network with all the features
that we and the rest of the world want and need.

Then we will at least have some breathing space while we work on that whole
planetwide wifi mesh thing.

~~~
angersock
I wouldn't suggest that we need a social network, but your first suggestion
isn't too far from the truth.

The exact thing needed is very boring, very low-level, and very unsexy, and I
believe can be summarized thusly:

 _We need a method for locating hosts on a network graph which does not have a
central point of failure and which cannot be easily disabled.

We then need a method for authentically routing messages back and forth
between these hosts without fear of man-in-the-middle attacks that can change
the contents of the messages._

This is pure transport-layer engineering.

As long as we can locate anyone connected to our network, and communicate with
them without interference, we can build whatever else we need to on top of
that.

We shouldn't confuse our efforts by trying to make a social network, or new
hashcoin lottery, or advanced supergovernment, or whatever else. We shouldn't
worry about interception of message contents--that way lies madness; as long
as I know my message reached somebody in one piece, and as long as they know
that a message signed by me is from me, we can fix the rest later.

This is a pure, straightforward, fucking hard engineering problem.

~~~
lkrubner
Why wouldn't government simply ban the whole thing? Consider ham radio: my dad
used to be really into it, and it doesn't cost much to get into it. But the
government can scare away a lot of people from it, simply with the distant
threat of some kind of punishment. So most people do it the legal way, at
which point it becomes a big hassle - tests and certificates. And as soon as
tests and certificates are needed, most people lose interest.

You can set up an illegal radio station for less than $1,000. My friends and I
did so in Virginia, in the USA, back in 2002. We were out in a rural area of
Virginia. We had great fun playing our favorite music to whoever would get the
signal. The FEC is slow to crack down on stuff like that when you are out in
the middle of nowhere. The radio station lasted 2 years, and it only got shut
down when we moved on to other things. I have fond memories of it.

Running a radio show is great fun and, if you are an extrovert, it can be
addicting. So why don't more people do it? Because it is illegal.

Likewise, if you created a protocol so free that government regulation was
impossible, then the government could simply make it illegal. You would be
"free" to use it, just like I was "free" to setup an illegal radio station,
but most people won't go near it if it is illegal.

There are many things that go through our society, and which flow so freely
that the government doesn't have the power to stop it, so instead it increases
the penalties. Drugs would be an example. In that case, a lot of people get
scared away from drugs simply because the government policies are draconian --
small amounts of drugs, found on your person, can lead to years of pain and
legal trouble.

I agree with the other comment where someone says that you can not come up
with a technology that will solve a policy problem. The ultimate power of the
government is that, in the end, to uphold the legitimacy of the law it has the
power to kill people. You can't come up with some cool technology that lets
you get around the reality of a punishing government, if the government
decides that some technology is too dangerous. All you can do is what the
people of Syria are doing now -- organize, resist, protest, possibly even
fight. There are only political solutions to political problems.

~~~
noonespecial
The catch here is what you're talking about is the ultimate power of _a_
government.

The system described wouldn't stop _a_ government from censoring the internet
for its own people. No technology can stop that. It would however prevent _a_
government from becoming _the_ government, which the Americans seem to try
endlessly to do.

Once the technology was "in the wild" the US could simply "ban the whole
thing"... and join North Korea in the nuthouse of closed internet while the
rest of the world passed them by with a curious shrug.

~~~
steve-howard
Or, more accurately, which the minimally-accountable American government seems
to try endlessly to do.

------
ChuckMcM
Sigh, don't panic, the system will work, just legislative time is not internet
time. As far as I can tell by reading the order [1] the order is temporary,
and as its from a district judge [2] really only holds for Nevada at the
moment. If it gets to the appeals process and the circuit court upholds it, it
will apply more broadly, up to the supreme court where it will apply to the US
as a whole. However what that means with regard to Chanel I'm not sure as it
really only means that from within the US are these things outlawed.

But having such cases is useful because it gives the system something on which
to chew, and then _publish opinions_ (not all cases get published opinions)
which set case law. So the good news might be that it gets to the circuit
court which then has a chance to publish an opinion that our courts can't make
these kinds of claims, and that gets upheld in the Supreme court and life is
better because all the judges have to follow along.

The system is cranky, and obtuse at times, but its remarkably resilient in the
face of unexpected challenges.

That being said, for the folks who are complaining about the institutions in
the US being subverted, I point out that nearly all the elections in this
country are won or lost by at most a 10% difference in votes. Further, in
general more than 20% of the registered voters don't even bother to vote. So
one could argue that if 20% of the 99% really cared about stuff they could
actully vote in whomever they chose to vote in and no amount of money,
croniesim, or stupidity on the part of the voters who are being lead around by
their noses could stop them. The math says it is impossible (short of fraud)
but fraud on that scale is really really hard to cover up.

[1]
[http://servingnotice.com/sdv/038%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Se...](http://servingnotice.com/sdv/038%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Second%20TRO.PDF)

[2] Federal courts have 89 districts, feeding into 13 circut courts, feeding
into the supreme court. <http://www.uscourts.gov/Common/FAQS.aspx>

------
zeteo
It's very unlikely that this article is correct. Here is the legal ruling:

[http://servingnotice.com/sdv/038%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Se...](http://servingnotice.com/sdv/038%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Second%20TRO.PDF)

This is a temporary restraining order. Chanel is posting a bond for any
damages to the defendants, should the trial prove them innocent.

Regarding de-indexing, there is only one paragraph (10) which says the domains
"shall immediately be de-indexed and/or removed", without specifying who will
do this action. This is vague, but I don't think it can be interpreted as an
order to Google / FB because:

\- the list of search engines / social sites is open ended

\- the previous paragraphs require actions by the plaintiff or by the
defendants (e.g. preserve computer files). Among others, paragraph (8) states
that the plaintiff can use Google Webmaster Tools on these domains.

\- the (temporary) transfer of DNS records is specified in small technical
details (including multiple technical solutions for the redirection involved)
in multiple paragraphs, while this arguably much more complex requirement
receives minimum treatment.

While the language is indeed a bit vague in paragraph (10), I think
consideration of all these factors seems to indicate it is the plaintiff and
the defendants who are to take action to see the sites de-indexed (using,
e.g., Google Webmaster Tools) and not the indexing companies.

~~~
jeroen
The november 14 order mentioned in the article (see
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/73773870/Chanel-Inc-v-
Does-11-Cv-0...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/73773870/Chanel-Inc-v-
Does-11-Cv-01508-KJD-PAL-D-Nev-Nov-14-2011) ) contains the following text (on
page 11):

 _(10) The Group II Subject Domain Names shall immediately be de-indexed
and/or removed from any search result pages of all Internet search engines
including, but not limited to, Google, Bing and Yahoo, and all social media
websites including, but not limited to, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter ..._

Looks like Ars got it right.

~~~
zeteo
Umm the date on my link is November 14th. It's the same thing, except I'm
linking to the original PDF and you're linking to the Scribd version.

Have you read the details in the post you're replying to? It's exactly about
the paragraph (10) that you're quoting.

------
DanielBMarkham
So if I decide to sell my wife's (imaginary) 3 tons of Chanel goods, and open
a site called chanel-goods-for-cheap, odds are my site gets lifted and I
become a part of this action no matter whether I am selling counterfeit goods
or not, right?

I agree with the attorney. Why get upset about SOPA? They can screw you over
just the same way today without all the extra laws.

This will eventually reach the point, if left unchecked, where large
corporations will completely own all of their internet distribution channels
-- resale, wholesale, damaged goods, you name it. If it's got "Brand X" as
part of the offering, folks over at Brand X are going to want to control it.

I really hate the fact that so many of these stories remind me of people
running around waving their arms with their heads on fire. It's always the end
of western civilization as we know it. But damn it, the problem is that there
are many separate issues where there _are_ real threats to common sense and to
liberty. It's like living in a town where several large buildings are on fire.
Being alarmed seems appropriate, but why bother? The whole place is hosed.

~~~
Jabbles
Please read the article and stop spreading false information. It doesn't help.

Obviously the court's decision sets an awful precedent. But the third
paragraph clearly states that Chanel checked that the sites were actually
selling counterfeit goods. So your analogy doesn't work.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
As I understood the article, there was an open order that Chanel simply
stuffed websites into. I'm not sure exactly what the qualifications of a
"anti-counterfeiting specialist" are, but it certainly doesn't involve
judicial review. From the article:

 _The case has been a remarkable one. Concerned about counterfeiting, Chanel
has filed a joint suit in Nevada against nearly 700 domain names that appear
to have nothing in common. When Chanel finds more names, it simply uses the
same case and files new requests for more seizures. (A recent November 14
order went after an additional 228 sites; none had a chance to contest the
request until after it was approved and the names had been seized.)

How were the sites investigated? For the most recent batch of names, Chanel
hired a Nevada investigator to order from three of the 228 sites in question.
When the orders arrived, they were reviewed by a Chanel official and declared
counterfeit. The other 225 sites were seized based on a Chanel anti-
counterfeiting specialist browsing the Web._

I'm not sure how that can be misconstrued. Chanel pays an expert who puts
together a list and they are automatically banned. Each site can then, and
only then, try to get some review. Chanel picks and chooses who to take sites
away from, then the site owners -- if they have the resources -- can try to
get things sorted out. Seems pretty straightforward to me (if completely
whacked) Yes, I extrapolate that situation into the future, but that's the
purpose of commentary: to use analogy and extrapolation to show facets of the
article that aren't immediately apparent to the reader. I never said that
brands own the internet now. I simply said that if things keep going this way,
this is where we are going to end up.

------
dchest
Reading this order: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/73773870/Chanel-Inc-v-
Does-11-Cv-0...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/73773870/Chanel-Inc-v-
Does-11-Cv-01508-KJD-PAL-D-Nev-Nov-14-2011) I wonder who is responsible for
_de-indexing and/or removing_ the domain names?

Other points begin with "Plaintiffs shall...", "Defendants shall...", but in
this point there's no party stated that must do the action:

 _"The Group II Subject Domain Names shall immediately be de-indexed and/or
removed from any search results pages of all Internet search engines
including, but not limited to, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and all social media
websites including, but not limited to, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter until
otherwise instructed by this Court or Plaintiff that any such domain name is
authorized to be reinstated, at which time it shall be reinstated to its
former status within each search engine index from which it was removed."_

~~~
alttag
IANAL, but isn't this outside the court's scope of authority, as many (most?)
aren't parties to the case? As I understand the role of judicial review and
precedent, I don't see how a party not associated with a case can be compelled
to do anything without a due process opportunity.

~~~
1010100101
Do you think they will resist the order in this case? Why or why not?

~~~
brettnak
I'm pretty sure they will do what their lawyers tell them the judge had the
authority to do. If the judge does not have this authority, their lawyers will
tell them to ignore it. If they judge does, they will tell them to obey it.

------
cube13
Sigh. This is pretty much a classic case of "THE INTERNET IS NEW AND SCARY".

Assuming that Charnel's claims are accurate(that counterfeit goods were being
sold), then the standard procedure 20 years ago would have been to work with
law enforcement and the courts. If the defendants were found guilty, the
counterfeit goods would be seized and profits off of them would be awarded to
Charnel. With the invention of the Internet, the exact same thing should have
happened. Charnel should have worked with law enforcement and the courts, and
if the defendants were found guilty, the goods should have been seized, and
the story should have ended. In either case, it would take a while(especially
if the shops were in countries that had very lax copyright laws), but there
should not have been really any difference between now and 20 years ago.

Only in this case, the judge, in his infinite wisdom, went the "OMG INTERNET
IS NEW AND SCARY" route, and decided to just remove the sites from indexes.
Aside from the fact that this doesn't actually fix the problem(hello, eBay),
this is a pretty new(and dumb) "solution" to a pretty settled problem.

------
stellar678
How can a judge possibly be so daft as to put a judgement against companies
not even party to the lawsuit?

If we find out these counterfeit goods are also coming over from China, should
we tell UPS and FedEx they can no longer fly planes out of there?

~~~
1010100101
So should they still comply with the order? Why or why not?

Why not issue an injunction to US-based ISP's or even IXP's to filter the IP
addresses these domains point to, or even whole address blocks? Do you think
they would comply?

~~~
charliesome
nitpick: both spellings are accepted

------
kogir
It's counterintuitive, but things like this are actually good. We need more of
them to happen, and for it to affect more people more often.

Right now the core of the internet is broken from a security perspective.
DNS[1], BGP[2], and SSL[3], despite being key to daily internet function, are
all completely inadequate for the important role the internet now plays in the
world and society. The thing is: right now they all work, almost all of the
time. Any change will be really painful. Even incremental changes like DNSSEC
see scant adoption[4] and obviously needed changes like IPv6 are put off until
the last possible second[5].

We need things to break before we'll see real change. And by break I mean
really break. When enough money is lost because of meddlesome, malicious, or
ignorant government and other intervention, we'll finally see real change. But
not one second before. After all, if it works, don't fix it[6].

If you really want to see change, exploit these laws to take down legitimate
and government websites. Post infringing links, ideas, etc, in the most
visible places you can. Try to get major news and other sites that allow user
generated content taken down. In the process you'll hopefully break things for
enough people that we see change, or you'll at least demonstrate how blatantly
inequitable most of these laws are. Both are good steps toward real change.

[1] <http://www.dnssec.net/dns-threats>

[2] <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4272.txt>

[3]
[http://www.darkreading.com/taxonomy/index/printarticle/id/23...](http://www.darkreading.com/taxonomy/index/printarticle/id/231600498)

[4]
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110330006919/en/IID-...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110330006919/en/IID-
Survey-Reveals-Insights-DNSSEC-Adoption)

[5] <http://ripe59.ripe.net/presentations/botterman-v6-survey.pdf>

[6] Yes, I know it doesn't _technically_ work in all cases right now, but did
you notice when any of these sites went offline? I didn't. I see an increasing
frequency of these types of reports, but have yet to be personally affected.

------
scott_s
I find Venkat Balasubramani's post linked to at the end of that article worth
reading in full:
[http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/11/court_oks_priva...](http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/11/court_oks_priva.htm)

------
mindstab
Is there really infrastructure available for this yet? Also "All Internet
search engines"... Possibly the judge underestimates how many there are out
there who will never even hear of this ruling without horrible SOPA
legislature and infrastructure in place. Till then they can't seriously expect
random search engine in my bedroom to track all legal rulings in this space.
This is fantastically impossible.

And it raises the point of how tricky it will be to even suggest enforcing
SOPA with out providing massive centralized services listing blocked sites
etc.

~~~
Joakal
It is possible with Google to de-index websites. Look up Google chilling
effects warnings. The judge can take it to mean that any search engines not
complying are in contempt.

~~~
_delirium
I'm no lawyer, but to be held in contempt of a court order, don't you actually
have to be specifically named in the court order and notified of it?

------
maqr
There is a strong need to keep a very public list of _every_ host that is
blocked in this way, so we can keep track of what's being censored. Has anyone
set up a wiki or something similar for this purpose yet?

------
madmaze
Even if some of these websites sell fake/counterfit goods, they should only be
taken out of the ads. Otherwise we are starting a trend of black-listing
website once again. This could be another seedpoint for the freedom of speech
and firewall-of-america discussion which was raised with SOPA

------
ebzlo
Facebook? Twitter? De-index? It sounds to me like the judge doesn't know much
of what he's talking about. Taking down the companies and their assets I'm all
for, but de-indexing them from search results seems a little bit unnecessary,
especially since they'll go away on their own once the domains are dead.

------
dsplittgerber
Not to be overly political, but:

This is what you get when you support a modern liberal state. It's always
going to over-extend and over-regulate, because that's just the way the
bureaucracy works - it's preserving itself by always finding new areas of
society and the economy that "just have to be regulated for the common good".

It's a matter of basic principles, really. It's just never going to end unless
you stand up for individual freedoms and very limited powers of the state.

~~~
kstenerud
If it's only a liberal thing, then why was the bill submitted with bipartisan
support?

~~~
dsplittgerber
There is no difference between US political parties as far as being in favor
of regulating areas of society and life is concerned.

~~~
kstenerud
So why the talk of a liberal state? America is far more conservative overall
than, for example, most Western European countries.

~~~
marshray
People who still believe in politics in the US tend to attach themselves to
"liberal" or "conservative" and use the other one as a pejorative. Neither
term has a very well defined meaning, other than for a few select issues like,
say, gay marriage.

~~~
sdkmvx
> Neither term has a very well defined meaning, other than for a few select
> issues like, say, gay marriage.

Not really. I'm conservative in that I don't think that being radical will
ever help your cause (see the French Revolution). I'm liberal in that I think
people should be able to do whatever the hell they want with their lives
(i.e., classical liberalism. It follows that I don't support excessive
government interference, regulation, or social programs, so I wouldn't go on
about being liberal, as that's what the U.S. Democrats have used to describe
their platform (which isn't liberal in the traditional sense).

For the record, the government doesn't need to regulate marriage whatsoever.
Obviously they want to know for tax purposes, but they shouldn't care about
the genders of the people involved. Churches can say whatever they want about
marriage, I don't really care, and I don't think gay people do either.

So which label do you want to attach to me?

~~~
marshray
_So which label do you want to attach to me?_

Independent thinker.

Note that in each of your uses of the terms L & C, you had to qualify them
with a specific context. In each of those contexts, there's someone else who
might use the term differently but sensibly. E.g., "radical conservatism",
"contemporary liberalism".

My point being that the terms L & C are not by themselves sufficient to
communicate intelligently, so when you hear them used without supporting
context, the speaker is often not working from a solid logical basis.

------
jakeonthemove
"All search engines and social media sites" - hehe, I can imagine the dialog:
\- But your Honor, they're based in another country! \- I don't care if
they're from Florida, they will remove the site or else!

But seriously, the Judge may be just as tired of it as we are, and just made a
quick ruling to please Chanel, at least for another month or so...

~~~
marshray
Or he believed there were new laws coming, or the issue as a whole was over
his head, he's just punting this up to some higher courts.

------
ImprovedSilence
I'm curious, how are there not "offshore" domains yet, much in the same
fashion there of offshore shell corporations for tax havens? Somebody tether
me a server farm in the middle of the Atlantic, and tap on into the cables
down below or something. Heck, got your water cooled farm right there. All
jesting aside though, does anyone think domains name registration is going to
start soaring in other countries because of all this bickering going on
lately? I see business models waiting to be found here.

~~~
calloc
Because ICANN is still governed by US rules, and while it would probably cause
a LOT of damage they could seize any domain they wanted since they own the
root DNS servers.

------
ComputerGuru
To all the people suggesting we approach this and other political problems
from a technological/engineering perspective: how do you think it could be
pulled off?

Put aside all the technical limitations - they can (have been or will be)
solved. The real question is adoption. What's a darknet without Facebook,
Google, etc. worth? Who will use it? There are already countless projects
implementing parts of suggested darknets, some of them very cleverly. They've
been around for literally decades. None of them are perfect, but they're not
so fatally flawed either.

The fact of the matter is, the internet is one big, huge de facto standard. No
one will use your pet project. No one will look at it. People would far rather
shoehorn or build on top of existing infrastructure (thereby being bound to
the limitations of the underlying architecture and design requirements).

Just look at IPv6. It's a new technology with the full force of all the giants
in the industry.... and it hasn't gone anywhere.

Actually, IPv6 would have been a good place to add the support for
decentralized everything, as it is pretty much the only "authoritive"
replacement for the current generation of technology. But it doesn't and it's
not.

You can build it, they won't come. History proves it.

~~~
TillE
> Just look at IPv6. It's a new technology with the full force of all the
> giants in the industry.... and it hasn't gone anywhere.

One of my VPS providers recently started offering IPv6 addresses to all
customers. Linode is starting to roll it out too. My residential ISP doesn't
offer anything natively, but the router they provided lets me set up a 6to4
tunnel in a couple clicks, which automagically gives all my devices an address
starting with 2002::/16. I can even go to ipv6.google.com on my iPad with no
extra configuration.

Progress is slow, but it's hardly stagnant. A few months ago, I didn't have
any of that. Ancient infrastructure is gradually being replaced by necessity,
and then it's just a matter of configuration.

------
electromagnetic
I'm waiting for the day that a 15 year old files a patent on a new style of
Capri's and ends up owning Levi, Wrangler, etc. for selling counterfeit
products.

Oh wait, that would never happen. (Incidentally in about 98, before capri's
got fashionable again, my friend took to folding and stitching her jeans, in a
few weeks all the girls were doing it throughout the summer; about 4 years
later she was pissed when Levi and Wrangler jeans started selling them,
manufactured from regular jeans and stitched almost identically)

I dislike the whole anti-counterfeit programs because companies want you to
spend $2000 for a leather bag with their name on it, but the bag is only
really worth $20. They're not even complaining that you're not willing to pay
for it (like pirating a movie), they're complaining because you're unwilling
to spend a massively unreasonable amount on it.

There's no reason to target the counterfeitters as they're not hurting your
business model. They're selling to people who know they're getting ripped off,
but Gucci and what not are selling it to rich idiots who don't know they're
getting ripped off.

~~~
OstiaAntica
You can't copyright or trademark a fashion pattern, like your friend's jeans.

Fake products using a trademarked name is a different matter-- they are of
inferior quality, and widespread distribution seriously damages the legitimate
brand.

~~~
electromagnetic
Yes, the name ripping is their right to enforce, however the big brands also
prevent knockoffs and imitations from being sold in major stores for threat of
pulling everything with their name on it if the store stocks similar-look
products.

------
VonLipwig
Its backward decisions like this which make me want to make sure that future
ventures are not using a domain with a US registrar. I would go further and
say its decisions like this which make we want to avoid dealing with any
business in the states at all.

The thing of most concern isn't the seizures themselves. It is the lack of due
process. The litigant finds 3 websites from 228 are selling counterfeit goods.
The litigant says the other 225 are also selling counterfeit goods.. the judge
takes their word. Websites disappear!?

I don't have a problem with counterfeit websites being taken offline. They can
ship goods which are dangerous to the public. What I have a problem with is
the lack of due process and the ordering of international websites which
everyone depends on to press the delete button also.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the lack of influence Silicon Valley
apparently has on US law. The western world's internet is dominated by US tech
giants. Yet US law seems to be moving against the tech sector. I say its about
time Silicon Valley started lobbying Washington.

------
jinushaun
As the article demonstrates, why wait for SOPA?

------
dholowiski
When the kindle fire comes out and it's not available in Canada, it drives me
crazy. When I had to wait years before Netflix was available in Canada I was
really mad. When Apple launched iTunes music, the iPhone, TV shows and Movies
in the US only I actually illegally obtained a US itunes account.

It sucks living in Canada. Most days. Not today.

------
desireco42
I don't think judges should be able to order unreasonable things like this
one. From article it shows that they don't even have proof that some of the
sites have done anything illegal. I understand Channel and sympathize with
them, but this judge should never be able to order something like this.

------
bane
Well, at least DuckDuckGo wasn't named in the court order.

------
kevinalexbrown
I think the appropriate (humorous) response would be to de-index federal
government websites, or websites which were pro-SOPA, or refuse to provide
services the judge, or those who work with him, use.

After all, it's aiding and abetting someone who's not acting in their
interests ...

------
craigmc
I liked the use of the "whack a mole" analogy. Here (for those who don't know)
is how this industrial-scale counterfeiting scam works:

1\. Set up OSCommerce or Magento site with design roughly copied from legit
rights owner. 2\. Get local 'middleman' to donate paypal account in return for
small cut 3\. Buy a bucket load of adwords 4\. Run massive scale xrumer /
scrapebox / etc 'SEO' campaign 5\. Repeat thousands of times over

Getting domains de-indexed via the DMCA process on Google, never mind taking
after-the-fact legal action, is just treating the symptoms.

Given that Paypal and Google are at the forefront of this issue, they are
where the responsibility lies in terms of preventing the sites from
transacting: by denying them a payment method and heaps of traffic
respectively. I am sure that both companies are working hard on this issue,
but having looked at the problem over the past couple of years, it hasn't
always seemed to be that much of a priority.

Beyond that it is basically a question of international trade treaties and
better local law enforcement in the territories where the offenders operate
(predominately China) - i.e. NOT an easy fix.

You can understand the frustration of rights owners who are obviously going to
take every opportunity to use legal action domestically. If they get a fairly
tech illiterate decision in their favour that has potential dangerous
consequences for the internet at large, then this is as much because they are
just swinging at everything (back to those moles) than any great desire on
their part to restrict legitimate rights and freedoms.

Finally, it is important to realise that this is not a victimless crime. What
brought this home to me was a few years back when I overheard a nurse in the
neonatal unit my son was being looked after in at the time excitedly talking
about a pair of brand name boots she'd bought on the internet.

I realised that she had absolutely no clue they were fake because why should
she? She had found the legitimate-looking site on the first page of Google and
had paid with Paypal.

This was not a transaction carried out 'out the back of a van', where caveat
emptor might more readily apply. A lot (majority?) of consumers don't realise
that for all the brand loyality they might have in respect of Google and
Paypal, etc^, they are services that are easily misused by unrelated third
parties and so should not be taken as any sort of 'trust mark' in they way
that shopping in large well-known department store does.

^Amazon and eBay deserve honourable mentions as being popular conduits for
counterfeit scams too (although eBay in particular deserves a lot of credit
for taking the subject more seriously than most).

~~~
marshray
_Finally, it is important to realise that this is not a victimless crime. What
brought this home to me was a few years back when I overheard a nurse []
excitedly talking about a pair of brand name boots she'd bought on the
internet._

"Hardworking baby nurse falls for scam on the internet."

ZOMG That's one of the stupidest justifications for fucking up DNS and
censoring the Internet that I've ever heard.

 _A lot (majority?) of consumers don't realise that for all the brand loyality
they might have in respect of Google and Paypal, etc^, they are services that
are easily misused by unrelated third parties and so should not be taken as
any sort of 'trust mark' in they way that shopping in large well-known
department store does._

The nurse controlling your preemie's heart rate monitor is too stupid to know
the difference between Google and Nordstrom's.

Oh give me a fucking break.

I had a preemie too. Those nurses are all sharp as tacks. She knew _exactly_
what she was doing.

~~~
craigmc
Read the comment again dude. Never suggested that this (or similar) judgements
are worth it. Also, I asked her, she didn't. Nor do the hundreds of thousands
of other people who fall for these scams. Fact is though, unless the tech
companies that are de facto facilitating these scams don't become better at
preventing them, these judgements (and the sort of scary legislation that get
proposed to deal with it) will become more common.

~~~
marshray
_I asked her, she didn't._

If the cheaper one has nearly all the same physical properties and a vastly
better price, she didn't care very much if it was a "genuine" article. Nurses
are very utilitarian.

Now you can believe that is a good way or a bad way to think, but it's not a
problem that's going to be significantly improved by having the legal system
DNS-jacking .com and trying to censor the internet.

 _tech companies that are de facto facilitating these scams_

As if there were no scams before the "tech companies" came along to facilitate
them.

Yes, there probably are businesses and business models that are threatened by
a post-information-scarcity world. But whole societies are threatened by
censorship.

But, more immediately and directly, the security of critical infrastructure
like DNS (and our networks that depend on it) is threatened by these attempts
to kink around with it.

------
nathanb
Just out of curiosity, were Google to simply not comply with this ridiculous
abortion of justice, what would be the result? Could Google appeal any
sanctions imposed as a result of their non-compliance?

What a mess.

~~~
marshray
IANAL, but it's unimaginable that Google, Twitter, Facebook, et al. would
somehow be compelled by this with no possibility of appeal.

That kind of law hasn't passed _yet_.

------
FreshCode
Picketing around the Google search box doesn't seem like the way to fight
counterfeiters, but I symphatise with Chanel on this. What would the ideal
solution be?

~~~
lubujackson
The ideal solution would be to seize the domains/servers/property of
counterfeiters where legally allowable (i.e., in the U.S.). Where the U.S. has
no jurisdiction (China, where the bags are likely made) they can follow the
procedures of China. Unfortunately for Chanel, China doesn't seem to give 2
shits about people making similar-looking bags.

------
jeswin
Let me be the devil's advocate here. If the pricing is more for the
exclusivity than its utility, you could argue that counterfeiting diminishes
the brand. And while it isn't the general opinion, it is a fair argument.

Isn't this case similar to a DMCA takedown notice? IMO DMCA take-down notices
make sense; it puts the onus on the content owner to correctly identify
infringement and report to the website. (OTOH, SOPA is ridiculous.)

------
yaix
"poshmoda.ws" has a hidden domain owner. But the "toll free" phone number on
their shows the obvious +86... Chinese copycat.

While I don't approve the methods they use to go after the Chinese copy
industry, I also dislike a lot how China has built a huge industry that just
profits of the good names Western companies have built up over decades,
sometimes centuries of reliable products.

The Chinise gov't is no help here either. So, what do?

------
capkutay
This is why we need more software engineers in the US. If we have people with
law AND engineering backgrounds making policy, we would see a system much more
rational/practical/just toward new technology. These types of issues only
occur because current policy makers have little understanding of the
consequences of their own actions (or perhaps they don't care.

------
teja1990
Why does Google/Facebook have to de-index? Its their site and they have right
to do whatever they want. If Chanel has issues with counterfeits , they have
to deal with that themselves ,petition with ICANN but not asking Google to de-
index. I dont get why these people take everything for granted and think as if
Google is doing some public service.

------
VladRussian
how it was managed before the Internet? Did they order to blacken specific
phone number(s) in all instances of yellow books?

------
gst
As a non-US-citizen I honestly don't see any major problem with that.
com/net/org domains are handled by US companies and it's therefore clear for
me that they fall under US jursidiction. If I want a domain that the US cannot
take away from me I just get one under a local TLD (which the US does not have
access to).

------
kevinburke
Practically, this ruling won't have much effect. There's a team of people at
Google already dedicated to removing results like these from the index, as
they aren't that great for users. Any counterfeit goods site with enough SERP
already gets on their radar, and gets removed/demoted, without action from Us
courts.

~~~
cheald
No, practically, this ruling has a lot of effect. It establishes precedent for
the courts being able to declare a web address illegal to publish. The judge
effectively ordered that the website be scrubbed clean from the internet, and
failure to do so could be construed as contempt.

He has declared that it is illegal to "say" those words on the internet.
Besides being a gross violation of the First Amendment, letting this ruling
stand would open the door for people to leverage this precedent against other
"undesirables".

------
andrewfelix
Where's the oversight? Where's the appeal process? Who's deciding whether or
not the evidence is solid enough to de-index a site? What about outlets that
got dodgy handbags from their supplier amongst legitimate merhandise?

The precedent here is terrifying. They're shutting down entire businesses on
some private dick's say so.

------
rokhayakebe
Why can't these companies simply give a unique ID to each item they sell and
allow owners to register them online, just like the DMV with cars. In this way
you will know what is fake, who bought what, ownership exchange etc...

~~~
kpanghmc
That would solve the problem of people accidentally buying fake Chanel
products. Is that really what Chanel is concerned about here? When I first
read this article, I assumed that Chanel was trying to cut down on the number
of people who deliberately purchase fake Chanel products since they cost a
fraction of the price and are not easily discernible from the real thing.

~~~
jiggy2011
I wonder if they are really losing sales here though, I imagine most people
buying fake Chanel/Rolex etc wouldn't be able to afford the real thing.

------
therandomguy
Somewhere right now the world's greatest minds in the network/cryptography
space are designing the next version of internet which will be beyond the
reach of governments... I hope.

------
abrichr
Would anyone be able to recommend a good non-US domain name registrar? I think
I'll be looking to switch.

------
vaksel
it's not like this stuff even works...most of these counterfeiters make their
cash by spamming people

------
Zarathust
I posted a few sites on my facebook page, I'm waiting for the US to take it
down

------
scottshea
I am really curious how Google and Facebook will handle this...

------
beedogs
☐ Understands how the Internet works.

☑ Renders a (faulty) decision anyway.

------
nextparadigms
Can't they appeal this?

