Google: Censorship and Antitrust bully. We need a protest.

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:22 pm

If you are a firefox user you can get a great little addon called ghostery and block all of googles trackers, if they cant track you they cant charge companys for their targeted ad's.
Ghostery now works with most mainstream browsers (Google chrome + ghostery + block all google trackers = sweet irony)

Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 11:36 pm

I use DoNotTrack+ , is it any better?

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:18 am

ForYouToEnvy wrote:

If you are a firefox user you can get a great little addon called ghostery and block all of googles trackers, if they cant track you they cant charge companys for their targeted ad's.
Ghostery now works with most mainstream browsers (Google chrome + ghostery + block all google trackers = sweet irony)

http://www.ghostery.com/faq

Ghostery is owned by Evidon, Inc.

Quote:

Evidon is a new type of company that brings trust to online advertising by working as an intermediary between consumers, advertisers, industry self-regulatory programs, and government. Evidon helps consumers protect their privacy and keep quality content ad-supported and free. Neither Evidon nor any third party on their behalf is involved in the collection or sale of any data, behavioral or otherwise, for use in ad targeting. Evidon is not an advertising network or behavioral data collection service.

Wouldn't trust it in a million years

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:03 am

well, im stuck with what i got till something better comes around. thanks for the tip trollster.

Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 11:20 am

Seeing how many trackers (and who those trackers belong to) ghostery blocks on every page i visit leads me to trust them up to a point. (could be that in the future the trollster is proved right in not trusting them, time will tell)

Ill have a look at that other proggy, thanks for the info killa1986 Smile

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 2:57 pm

IH wrote:

On the news that Google announcing they will downrank sites "with too many valid DMCA takedown notices". Since isoHunt is currently listed as #3 of most noticed sites, that is likely to happen to to us.
...
We need a protest against Google censorship and antitrust.

I stand by IH on this and would sign if a protest is made available, ... and if I can get through that bl**dy survey screen from "whatever-t*be"
I noticed it a few weeks ago, while searching for some information here, it took me ages to get through, but I had switched my ISP and thought it might be due to that. But apparently that wasn't the reason. I switched to Google Chrome a few months ago, Mozilla was taking up too much memory in my machine, now Google Chrome is not only taking as much space but obviously tracking my browsing habits as well ! Mad

Will try some of the advise found in comments here. BTW I used mozilla to finally get in to the forum but it's an older version.

Last moment !:
Apparently managed to get rid of the awful "survey" sh*t, I have been using Mozilla -the latest version 12.0- for some last searches and only once I got that behind popup. I am also using a plugin from AVG called "do not track" (for whatever is worth) sorry I can't give more technical explanations it's not for secrecy reasons, simply geeky ignorance Embarassed

I logged back in exclusively to mention this and to thank for some material in another thread.

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:33 am

I operate a tiny but very unique web directory in that the php driving it can be downloaded and installed on any number of other websites. Each install gets its links and categories from my server and, as new sites install the script, then the number of "eyeballs" viewing the links grows larger and the advertising value of it increases. So in many ways it is a pseudo p2p advertising system. The revenue is all shared and distributed to the hosting sites in a multi-level system that rewards those that generate sales but the directory is free to all to list their site.

Since this new algorithm change by Google I have been getting notices from website owners to be removed because Google has listed my simple directory on their blacklist. First, I've yet to make a dime with it so far and, second, if Google is "clever" enough to detect my site and therefore blacklist it then it is also not a threat to them, is it? They can simply not count it as any value to their ranking system.

Part of what spawned my sites development was the lunacy of Google's ranking algorithm. They have or had only 10 divisions in their Pagerank system that supposedly divided the millions of results pages they supposedly found. With only ten slots and, as an example, 500 million results there would be 50 million results (on average) within each slot. What possible criteria could there possibly be to separate out site 250 million from site 250 million AND ONE? There are not even that many pixels on a page! What then, one site left an extra space after a period or some other foolish, insignificant factor separates a Pagerank 5 from a Pagerank 6. The Google Ranking system has been nothing but arbitrary garbage from its inception.

I couldn't agree more that Google is embracing anti-fair trade practices.

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 1:19 am

Best way to promote DuckDuck Go is to paste it on your Facebook page along with the information of Google collecting personal information and promoting censorship, Almost evryone who has an account has a few friends like myself i have over a 100 and I know some of the people im friends with have over a 1000. If you get the information out right ...Facebook will provide itself as the ultimate protest machine.. And once it takes hold!!

We need a protest against Google censorship and antitrust.[/quote]

Quote:

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:19 pm

The thing with what you are talking about is that you are complaining google won't remove a google website from a google web search. If google so wanted they could block every website on the planet and only return google based hits.

There is no law against this. After all there is no law that says google must service other websites!

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:42 am

I like your referrence to Youtube as I am a Youtube partner myself. It may seem like a site about fun, entertainment and learning to everyone else but for regular uploaders the site is getting a worse and worse place to show their content. Ever since google took over things have been going downhill rapidly. Laws are ignored and scandals covered up. Google makes a lot of effort to conceal their true practices and ways from the viewers.

Many of you are probably wondering why a lot of videos that are not harming anyone are being taken down. Forget everything you've been told by google about infringement or whatnot.
First of all, the system is set up in such a way that anyone can claim any video, without the need to provide proof of ownership, and file a takedown. You could, for example, say you are the representative of a major company, fill in a short form for a video and presto! You can make money off it or remove it because, for instance, the uploader said something mean to you. Or you don't like his/her face. Or just because you like being a dick. And as long as you don't give in there's nothing the uploader can do against it.
The second reason, which is why google allows this to happen, is because the rest of the takedowns is filed by companies who post videos themselves. Videos which make google a lot of money. If the companies remove all the videos slightly related to theirs then everyone will have to watch their videos. Thus, the more videos from minor uploaders are removed, the more money google makes.
Videos which make a substantial amount of money are never removed, just like videos from the companies because they often file a lawsuit if it's serious enough. Google doesn't care to sort the false claims from the valid ones because that would cost too much money.
So combining this with this topic we can safely congratulate google on their #1 rank on the world's most corrupted companies list.

I don't want to make this too long but keep this and all the other comments here in mind the next time you use a google service. Some functions they provide, like images.google, are irreplaceable imo, but I would love to see a replacement for google in the future, one that actually cares for the freedom of sharing on the internet. One that can allow the internet to be the place it has the potential to be, but which is being restricted for now.

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2012 7:09 pm

If you just google isohunt look down the pages an see some of the results..

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:16 pm

Currently using DNT+ I am blocking Google Analytics and Quantcast from tracking my whereabouts. They're probably tracking other isoHunters. Be Warned! God knows what Google are up to. Shocked

http://donttrack.us/

The irony is this site has a Facebook and Twitter account. They talk about privacy and yet they have accounts on the two most tracked sites on the web?

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:46 am

If it's of any use, google.co.uk seems to still show autoresults for all isohunt searches.

I have to say, I'm rather ashamed of Google for bending to pressure, it just goes to show that corporate ties is much more important than our human rights.

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 2:35 am

IH wrote:

On the news that Google announcing they will downrank sites "with too many valid DMCA takedown notices". Since isoHunt is currently listed as #3 of most noticed sites, that is likely to happen to to us.

But let's get it out of the way that we are crying foul just because we are scared of losing traffic. About 75% of all our traffic are direct traffic, with 21% coming from Google searches (and much of that being searches on "isohunt" and "isohunt.com"). So even if Google takes isoHunt entirely out of their index, we'll survive. Unless Google start censoring isoHunt at the Chrome browser level, but let's not give them any ideas.

What I want to bring to attention about this search algorithm change is Google is no longer the search engine upstart they used to be (for a while now). As Search Engine Land says, Google is now a content distribution company. What's missing on Google's DMCA notices report? Youtube. The by far largest video content website in the world ought to have very high volume of DMCA notices, if not the most, and it's inconspicuously missing from the list. To downrank and censor any website that's not Google's that receives a high number of DMCA notices? Sounds exactly like antitrust to me.

Now, on what is "valid" DMCA notices to warrant Google labeling a site as pirate? Google Legal has already labelled us a "pirate" service before, to prop themselves up as "legit". That is their opinion. What is really wrong with downranking/censoring websites based on "valid" DMCA notices however is that what's valid is simply notices that has not been countered. With millions of links subject to notices, we never bothered countering any DMCA notices on Google (not to mention Google only recently put up their transparency report so there hasn't even been an easy way to review what's been noticed per domain). That does not mean all links under isohunt.com which Google has filtered by notices are valid, just because we haven't countered them. Not any more valid than how Youtube took down NASA's Mars video just because a broadcaster said so. Is what Google/Youtube routinely call valid takedowns valid, like many others before? You tell me. (although to Google's credit, a video of a Canadian urinating on his passport is too good to takedown, unlike a video from Mars)

To complicate matters, we are also a search engine, like Google, not just a regular website. We have our DMCA policy and takedown process, like Google. (ours was electronic by email years ago I might add, when Google was still requiring snail mail) And contrary to popular beliefs, we have plenty of torrent links to non-copyright infringing content, and we'll be adding 1.4M more from the Internet Archive soon. Is it right for Google to downrank or outright censor torrent links to legit, non-infringing content on isoHunt.com (or any other site), just because copyright holders have spammed a million "valid" DMCA notices on our other pages to Google that hasn't been countered? Censorship will never be easier, by DMCA spam.

The media conglomerates failed to pass SOPA, now they are getting in bed with Youtube at the public's expense. I'd point you to Google alternatives like DuckDuckGo (which respects your privacy a lot more to boot), or heck, bing but since everyone google, that's unlikely to go far in practice. While Google already started down this path of censorship with autocorrect before, search ranking based on mere DMCA notices is a line that should not be crossed.

We need a protest against Google censorship and antitrust.

i like how some of the online warriors such as isohunt are actually standing up to these money loving conglamorate whores known as google and every other private interest or large corperate interests.

these people think they can bully us but guess what there are small, they profess they are big, but any giant looks big against one soldier, but place even ten solders against him or 100 or 10,000 and lets see how ong he lasts.

the point of me saying tha is this: if we stand together nothing can over power us, as long as we stand together, we are stronger than any goverment, or any weapon. alone we are targeted and alienated. but together we are invincible. unity is power.

when we work together we can achieve everything. nothing is impossible when we stand together, its will that wins not words or documents although they are neccary, we must fight these large money loving whores who seek to destroy our freedom for their own private interests.

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2012 5:41 pm

DuckDuck GoGoGooo....

(Just ditched out tha Google Search...) Very Happy