DISQUS

Mashable - The Social Media Guide: 2008/05/28/belgian-newspapers-sue-google-for-sending-them-traffic-again/

  • Marc · 1 year ago
    What a bunch of idiots, someone should get fired for that. What decade are they in?

    Or maybe they have parlayed this into global exposure and minimal expense, unless their legal fees are high.

    But the global exposure is not that useful if their ideology appears to be backwards.
  • Matt · 1 year ago
    As a Belgian I have to say I don't like your opening statement. Shit on the people (webmasters) that never heard of a robottext, preventing spiders from crawling their site. But don't generalise a whole country thinking they're still living in the Dark ages or something to that order.

    Anyway, It was the same with that idiot porn site that sued google for indexing their images in their image search results.

    On both of these cases it's all the webmasters fault. Case closed.
  • Adam Hirsch · 1 year ago
    Hysterical. It's so true.
  • Stan_Schroeder · 1 year ago
    Nowhere in the text or the opening paragraph do I see a generalization about the Belgian people. If it even seemed to be so, I apologize; it was not intended. Throughout the text I'm, of course, referring the Belgian newspapers which filed a lawsuit against Google, and them alone.
  • Matt · 1 year ago
    No harm done then. Maybe I jumped the gun too fast and interpreted it wrong.

    By this my apologies too then =]
  • Claye · 1 year ago
    Dang it, I knew I should have told my Belgian niece not to cut out that Copiepresse article and glue it (without permission) in her presentation on Belgian history... we better get a lawyer.
  • youporn · 1 year ago
    I didn't know that "placing link" and fair use when you use copyrighted material.
    I think google deserve to be punished
  • * Miss Universe · 1 year ago
    Wouldn't it be a riot if someone got to the point of suing Digg either for quoting their article in the description or using a thumbnail of a copyright image
  • modemlooper · 1 year ago
    can someone slide them a search engine marketing handbook for dummies please.
  • Joshua · 1 year ago
    We always make jokes about how dumb Belgians are, here in Holland. Well, this one shows that we are right (again).
  • Ian Kemmish · 1 year ago
    Maybe they are just ahead of the game. Maybe everyone in Belgium uses ad blocking software to prevent online advertising from slowing their computer and compromising its security. (Everyone I'm personally acquainted with here in the UK does.) Maybe they figure that eventually even Madison Ave will wake up to this and stop wasting money on useless online advertising. Maybe they figure that by that time, the people who didn't abandon print will be in the box seat....
  • Robin Wauters · 1 year ago
    Joshua, we always make jokes about how people from Holland can be as ignorant as they are arrogant, here in Belgium. Well, your comment shows that we are right (again).

    That said, I'm ashamed about those French-speaking publishers not understanding how the internet works. They deserve to be served Dutch beer the rest of their lives as a severe punishment.
  • Xavier Damman · 1 year ago
    I'm a Belgian French speaker and yet totally ashamed by these newspapers.
    Should be very interesting to make a survey to know how many of their online readers do support that action.
    Probably the same number of persons who support BHV (private joke).
  • Miss Thang · 1 year ago
    I think for the Belgian newspapers its a way to get Google to give them lots of money or they just dont understand how the internet works. Hate them or like them Google are good at what they do and most internet users use it to search for information. All sounds like a joke because you have educated people leading these newspapers and you would think they would understand better. Why build a website if you dont want people to search for it.
  • Kaguvkov · 1 year ago
    This is along dispute. It may take a little while before this issue will be covered up.
  • Brussels · 7 months ago
    actually there is a google maps based site that has near realtime Belgian traffic news... hmm ;) www.expatlist.be/maps.php