TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Google Decides to Publish the Ruling Against It

Google Decides to Publish the Ruling Against It

Reuters News Wire (reuters@telecom-diges.org)
Sat, 23 Sep 2006 14:10:30 -0500

Google Inc. on Saturday published on its Belgian website a court order
which forbids the Internet search engine to reproduce snippets of
Belgian press on its news amalgamation service.

The move constituted a u-turn as Google had said on Friday that it
would not comply with the court order despite facing a fine of 500,000
euros ($640,900) daily if it did not publish the ruling.

A spokeswoman for Google declined to elaborate on the reasons that
made the company change its mind but said it would seek to cancel the
ruling.

"We are pleased that a judge has given Google the opportunity to
appeal the substance of this case. This will be heard in November,"
the spokeswoman said.

Google News lists headlines and a few sentences of text from news
articles around the world and links back to a publication's own Web
site for users to read the whole item.

Any publisher can opt out by asking Google to remove its content, but
publishers argue that by reproducing the material in the first place
Google is violating copyright law.

The Belgian case was brought by Copiepresse, an organization that
manages copyrights for French and German language newspapers.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.

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