Google Begins Making DMCA Takedowns Public

Linux Journal ^ | 4/12/2002 | Don Marti

[jennyp]

Attention DMCA lawyers: Try to remove a web site from Google's index and you'll probably just make it more popular.

In an apparent response to criticism of its handling of a threatening letter from a Church of Scientology lawyer, the popular search engine Google has begun to make so-called "takedown" letters public. DMCA-censored pages are now two clicks and a cut-and-paste away from the regular search results.

The full text of two new letters to Google, dated April 9 and 10, already appears on the free speech site chillingeffects.org. "I think it's great that they're calling attention to the way the takedown provision can be used to compromise their search results," said Wendy Seltzer, Fellow of Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and co-founder of chillngeffects.org.

Google is still choosing to take advantage of the Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows web sites to escape liability for copyright infringement if they take pages down in response to properly formed letters.

In a controversial move last month, Google pulled all pages from the anti-Scientology site xenu.net then restored the site's home page amid Internet outcry, just as Linux Journal readers were on their way to visit Google in person to ask for help finding censored pages about the alien warlord Xenu who is a key figure in Scientology's creation legend.

Only the name and telephone number of the attorney who wrote the letters have been removed from the copies on chillingeffects.org. Both of the new letters originate from the Los Angeles law firm of Moxon & Kobrin, where attorney Helena Kobrin has long been Scientology's standard-bearer against church critics on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology and other online fora. Kobrin was not immediately available for comment

The letters are also linked to directly from Google search results. When results would have included a DMCA-censored page, the results page now includes a link to the takedown letter that resulted in the page being removed. A search this morning for site:xenu.net scientology produced the message:

"In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 8 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."

Failing to act in response to a DMCA takedown letter is not against the law. "They can always choose not to take advantage of the safe harbor," Seltzer said. However, only by complying with the letter and taking pages out of their index can Google escape a possible copyright infringement lawsuit.

Finally, Google has expanded its DMCA page to include instructions for Counter Notification under the DMCA. A webmaster who believes that a non-infringing page is being unfairly censored can write the proper legal incantations and have the page put back into the index.

Google is then required to forward this Counter Notification to the original notifier, and then put the page back in the index "not less than 10 or more than 14" days after Google receives the Counter Notification. If your site is pulled out of Google and you're confused, chillingeffects.org has a web form that will generate a correctly formed Counter Notification.

[jennyp]

Google put the Xenu site back up in a hurry. Their new policy of posting the actual takedown letters when they do pull a website is hilarious!

[stands2reason]

I think it's ingenious. Nothing wrong with saying "This page was censored by _______."

[GeronL]

I wonder if they do the same for kiddie porn meisters?

and what exactly is alien warlord Xenu??

[Dales]

Especially since the takedown letter has to have the URL of the page to be removed. Brilliant!

[WyldKard]

and what exactly is alien warlord Xenu??

Ah! Xenu! Well thats an interesting question!

The main "shadow belief" of the Mystery Cult of Scientology is that 75 million years ago, there was a galactic confederation of planets. The evil alien overlord Xenu ruled them all with an iron fist. Sensing his rule was about to crumble, he decided to "take care" of the Confederations overpopulation problem (the average on each planet being about 1 trillion people.) So he got together with a bunch of tax collectors and psychologists, forcibly put trilions of people into suspended animation, loaded them up on rocket ships that looked like DC-9's without props (remember, this drek was written during the pulp fiction era.) and flew them all to planet Teegeak. (What the Confederation called Earth.)

He then dumps all the people around volcanos on Earth. Las Palmas and Hawaii are mentioned. (Even though Hawaii didn't exist 75 million years ago?!) Then he dumps a few hydrogen bombs into the volcanos, which causes them to explode, and kills everyone. Zoom, up and away, their alien souls fly off. But Xenu, naturally being evil, doesn't want those souls to reincarnate on any Confederation worlds. So he uses these "electron flypaper" traps to capture the souls, and force them to stay on Earth.

(BTW, this incident is why there is a volcano on the Dianetics book. It's supposed to trigger a racial memory of the event...)

Worse, he puts these "souls" into a kind of "brainwashing movie theather" and puts all sorts of junk that Xenu thought would make the souls weak (Like Christianity...Hubbard did not like those folks too much, apparently...). Long story short, the souls, called thetans, reincarnate into clumps. So when we are born, we have thousands of thousands of these dead alien souls in our body. And they screw us up, and cause all of the evil in the world, and all of our psychological problems.

But good news! By signing up with Scientology and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the priveledge of doing things like taking massive doses of vitamin E and sweating in saunas and telling damaging and embarassing personal secrets to Scientology agents while holding "E-Meter" tin cans, the Cult promises to help you strip out those Thetans, so you can become "Clear". As you become closer and closer to clear, your Godlike Potential emerges, giving you teleportation, telekensis, perfect memory, etc etc.

The kicker is this: They don't tell you this shit when you sign up. Not right away. They are VERY secretive about it, and this wasn't even known to the general public until the Fishman Afadavit forced it out into the open, maybe only 10 years ago. You need to spend a lot of money to make it to OT level 3 (Operating Thetan) before they tell you the "Big Secret". According to Scientology, all of you who read my words will now die of pnemonia, because your minds were not "prepared" for this Big Truth.

I am not making ANY of the above up folks, I swear. Scientology is one of the greatest cultural threats of the 20th and 21st Century. The Germans KNOW a cult bent on world domination when they see one. Why do you think they have banned them left and right?

Btw, John Travolta is OT 7. By now, he should have some amazing mental powers. Maybe he could use them to improve his acting..

[WyldKard]

Oh, and the reason why the www.xenu.net site is called "Operation Clambake" is because Hubbard believed we all evolved from clams.....

[general_re]

Yes, you've certainly got the guts of it. I suppose it's only a matter of time nor before someone from the CoS notices your post and threatens to sue JimRob and FR.

Also, you forgot the salacious sexual rumors about Travolta and the CoS ;)

[billbears]

Won't be using Google anymore. Didn't realize they were so anti free speech

[texlok]

What do you mean? Google is fighting back against those who are trying to force them to remove links to sites they don't like..kinda the opposite of what your talking about. The lawyers hit Google to remove a link, Google says "here's the cease and desist letter".

[billbears]

Okay I understand I misread the article. I thought they were taking them down of their choosing, not the lawyers

[FrdmLvr]

It's amazing how anyone would believe in a religion founded by a science fiction writer.

[chilepepper]

L Ron Hubbard was involved with Aleister Crowley, the well known Satanist back in the early 50's, and set up some organizations with him.

Scientology stems from that moral environment, and is one of the most evil organizations there is, this being constantly shown by their totalitarian actions in supressing disent and attacking their critics.

The fact that is so popular in Hollywood says a great deal about the morally challenged entertainment industry too...

[Anoy11_]

But Battlefield earth was such a great movie. Didn't it win an oscar. My lungs are filling up with liquid now.

[Indrid Cold]

"L Ron Hubbard was involved with Aleister Crowley, the well known Satanist back in the early 50's, and set up some organizations with him."

Cite, please. AFAIK, Crowley thought Hubbard was a dolt. When Hubbard and some other guy were conspiring to make a Moon Child (don't ask), Crowley was heard to say "...the idiocy of these two louts makes me quite frantic."

[Bush2000]

It's amazing how anyone would believe in a religion founded by a science fiction writer.

These are the same dolts who believed it when Clinton said, "I did not ... have sexual relations with that woman ..."

[stands2reason]

My husband watched that whole movie in the living room where I have the computer. I had to put my headphones on and crank up my MP3 to avoid hearing it. Every time the network stalled or in between songs, I could hear JT say something like, "Stewpid hewmans!" It was a nightmare!

[jennyp]

My husband watched that whole movie in the living room where I have the computer. I had to put my headphones on and crank up my MP3 to avoid hearing it. Every time the network stalled or in between songs, I could hear JT say something like, "Stewpid hewmans!" It was a nightmare!

LOL! It was fun, in a cheezy sort of way.

[research99]

Travolta bump. (see: http://www.xenu.net)