A Very Different Perspective
As the owner of a small blog as well as of a number of small commercial websites, I spend a lot time trying to Google to index me higher (hey, you, down here, look at me). So its strange to me when I see this:
WASHINGTON : Agence France-Presse has sued Google Inc. for
copyright infringement, alleging that the Internet search engine
included AFP headlines, news summaries and photographs published
without permission.In a suit filed in a Washington court, AFP sought damages and interest
of at least 17.5 million dollars (13.1 million euros) and an
interdiction on the publication of its text and photos without prior
agreement.
I know several news agencies have tried this. My guess is that this is a bid for payment rather than delisting. It would be interesting to test them and see what their reaction would be if Google said "OK, we'll drop you". My guess is that if Google purposely did not include AFP in their news index, they would probably get sued instead for anti-trust. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Something Walmart is probably coming to understand nowadays.
