google sanctions theft of content
As I mentioned in a post the other day I contacted Google about a search engine spammer who is stealing my posts and using them to wrap around Google ads. There's no attribution back to me and it is an obviously automated spammer. Here's there response:
"Hi Ian,
Thank you for your note. Google aggregates and organizes information
published on the web; we don't control the content of these webpages. If
you're concerned about the content on a particular page in our search
results, we suggest that you directly address the webmaster of the page in
question. To learn how to contact the webmaster of a site, please visit
http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=9109. For more
information about our Terms of Service, please visit
http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html
Regards,
The Google Team"
I find this unacceptable. I would even prefer a "hey we looked at it and think it's OK", but this is obviously a canned response. Most likely nobody even looked at the site because the response seems to be suggesting my problem is with something I found in a search. My biggest problem with it is that it's basically sanctioning the theft of my content. Saying we don't control it so there's nothing we can do is insane when the only reason these people are stealing the content is to make money from Google Ads.
So Google how about turning off the Ads? How about when a copyright holder comes to you with an issue you at least have a human look at it? You've got $3.1 Billion in current assets, how about hiring a $10/hour human to review your emails?