Why Everyone is Mad at Google - Google Threatens Copyrights

This section almost deserves an article in its own right - though, to be honest, there isn't an obvious parallel with Microsoft in Google's conduct here. Perhaps we can see the similarity if we think in terms of Google (or Microsoft) threatening someone's livelihood by providing something for free that the other person charges for. Microsoft has used its monopoly power deliberately in this way to put competitors out of business.

Google isn't apparently trying to put anyone out of business by its behavior, but since it's one of the top websites that everyone goes to when they want answers, it has the same effect. Google has information, which it gives away for free. If it gives away enough information, users don't see any need to go to the linked source. So rather than gaining from the increased visibility, the site linked to in Google's SERPs actually loses something.

The argument may seem a little far-fetched, but it's been used. And it's no wonder when there's money on the line. Information may want to be free, but some content is copyrighted - and that means its use is supposed to be under the control of the copyright holders. You may remember when Google changed its logo to honor deceased Spanish artist Joan Miro on April 20 - and had to change it back because the search engine didn't get permission from Joan Miro's family to use the images. That's merely scratching the surface when compared to the other hot water Google is in over copyright issues.

Take book publishers, for example. The Google Books project aims to scan millions of books from five of the world's largest libraries and make them searchable on Google's website. That includes copyrighted works. Publishers and authors say that's copyright infringement, while Google insists that, since it will only show small pieces of copyrighted works, it's legal under an exemption in the law intended for research. The disagreement has gotten to the point that the Authors Guild filed a class action lawsuit against Google; so have several major publishers. The suit won't go to trial for a few months yet - and in the meantime, Google is still scanning books.

Website publishers also have grounds to be mad at Google for copyright infringement issues. The owner of Perfect 10, an adult website, sued Google for showing thumbnails of the site's copyrighted images of women. Judge Howard Matz issued a preliminary injunction against Google, stating that its image search likely infringes copyright law. Fortunately for Perfect 10 and other websites that make their money from paid subscriptions to their content, there is a way to use a robots.txt file to keep Google from indexing certain pages of a website.

That trick won't work as well if you want people to actually know about the content on your pages, and come visit to get the answer to your question rather than just see what Google turns up. This could become a real problem if Google starts implementing technology being developed by an Australian researcher. Dubbed Orion search, the technology returns more information when a user puts in keywords than you would normally see in the SERPs. It takes advantage of natural connections between knowledge. For example, if you're looking for information about the American Revolution, your search might also pull up connected information about George Washington.

The point is, someone using Orion search technology might be more likely to find their answer among the results returned - and stay on Google's website to keep searching, rather than visit the website(s) that actually contain the information. This could be very good for Google, and for businesses whose advertising shows on the search engine's website. It might not be so good for the sites that turn up in the SERPs, and for businesses who advertise on those sites. A lot of people all but forget that even websites are covered by copyright law - and using the content of a website without its permission is still copyright infringement, and illegal.

So where do these issues leave the rest of us? We're not quite over the same barrel with Google that we have been with Microsoft; Google still has some strong, viable competitors. But it sure seems to be headed in the same direction. The last thing we need is another big company acting like it owns our business, but it's going to take some major work by Google's rivals to slow down this juggernaut.