Attacking Google Becomes a National Past Time

Just as Google goes universal and boasts a respectable stock price, a pallor of gloom hangs over the Googleplex.

Let's start with litigation filed on March 13, 2007 by Viacom, Inc. and its related entities against Google and its subsidiary, YouTube. The suit charges Google with copyright infringement for broadcasting clips of Viacom cash cows such as SpongeBob Square Pants and South Park. It also requests more than $1 billion in damages.

In a Motion to Dismiss filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Google responded by claiming strict adherence to requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. According to Google's Motion, that provision allows hosting of copyrighted content originating elsewhere provided the host site responds properly to claims of infringement. Google claims it has. Although it may have successfully framed the argument as "chilling access to the Internet," serious intellectual property rights are at stake. Further erosion of copyright protections could have a chilling effect on creative expression. As seen from last year's Writers Strike, artists won't create new content without proper compensation.

On other battle fronts, Google rejected Senator Joe Lieberman's request to remove terrorist propaganda from its YouTube site. Although it did remove approximately eighty videos, Google cited the First Amendment as justification to keep the remainder. Senator Lieberman may now be considering "creative legislation" as a way to pressure compliance.

Ironically, the video of Senator Lieberman's harsh criticism of Google and its subsidiary is hosted at YouTube.

Only yesterday, Google was attacked for failing to commemorate Memorial Day with a distinctive holiday logo. Some are now questioning the search giant's patriotism and loyalty to the U.S. Microsoft has mounted a Live Search Cashback program, trying to cut into Google's market share for product information by offering cash incentives.

More intriguing, Wikia, the for-profit arm of Wikipedia continues to challenge Google's unparalleled search engine capabilities. Hadn't visited Wikia in quite a while, so was surprised to see such a large community of wikis taking root. No slackers in these hubs, the categories of information are expansive. Volunteer editing turns the Google search concept on its head, promoting transparency over algorithms, and perhaps the growth of these specialized communities.

Want to create your own brand of Harry Potter lore? Look no further than the Harry Potter fanon wiki. Interested in tracing genealogy? The Familypedia wiki has over 20,000 articles to get you started. Not only are these wikis bastions of particular information, they also bring people together in pursuit of a common goal, something I have yet to see happen over at Google, despite their best intentions.