{"id":4461,"date":"2008-07-14T10:22:11","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T17:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/?p=4461"},"modified":"2008-07-14T10:22:11","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T17:22:11","slug":"google-not-censoring-pff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/14\/google-not-censoring-pff\/","title":{"rendered":"Google not censoring PFF – or are they?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tUPDATE 2: On further analysis, it seems that we were right the first time. Google does in fact flag as containing malware the majority of PFF’s PDF documents on net neutrality, and none of these documents actually does contain malware, viruses, or exploits. It’s a case of “guilt by association” as they share a directory with some infected files. This doesn’t mean Google is deliberately censoring free-market ideas on net neutrality, but they certainly are interfering with the public’s access to them. This is more a case of incompetence than of deliberate censorship, however.<\/p>\n

Let’s apply the same standard to Google that its net neutrality partners have applied to Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. ISPs shape traffic on their first mile networks, sometimes with blunt instruments and sometimes with surgical tools. According to Free Press and Google’s other partners in the net neutrality “let’s micro-manage broadband” coalition, blunt instrument management is a sign of anti-competitive bias.<\/p>\n

How does Google look if we judge their actions by the yardstick they propose for ISPs? Guiilty as sin. Now you see why this is an important story.<\/em><\/p>\n

UPDATE: See the comment by Erica George of Stop Badware. It’s actually Google that identifies malware-infected sites, and Stop Badware simply works the process of removing black-listed sites when their problem is resolved. These stories are hard to get right, but we try.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a now-deleted post, I complained about certain net neutrality criticisms being apparently censored by Google. This was an error by my part, as I rushed a reader e-mail into a blog post without doing my research. Here’s a comment by PFF on the matter:
\n<\/p>\n

Everyone at PFF appreciates your concern, Richard, but what actually happened is quite benign; Google was not certainly censoring anyone!<\/p>\n

Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happened\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Unlike the rest of our site, our \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Issues & Publications\u00e2\u20ac\u009d system relies on an SQL database\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich, like any SQL database, is vulnerable to certain kinds of attack. We recently noticed such an attack and took steps to solve the problem. This is standard operating procedure for anyone running a site with an SQL database.<\/p>\n

The Google search engine relies on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Badware Website Clearinghouse\u00e2\u20ac\u009d kept by StopBadWare.org [Editor’s note: see comments, as this isn’t quite correct]. The StopBadware project is a very helpful \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neighborhood watch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d campaign led by the good folks associated with the Berkman Center at Harvard. StopBadware works with Google to automatically identify sites that might contain badware, as their FAQ explains: http:\/\/www.stopbadware.org\/home\/faq#partnerwarnings-warning<\/p>\n

Once a site is flagged, a warning message will arise when someone attempts to visit the site from the Google search engine or if one is using Google desktop or certain other firewall tools that aim to protect users from visiting dangerous sites. <\/p>\n

The reason you encountered that warning page is that our site was quite accurately flagged as potentially dangerous and we had not yet completed the procedure for having our site removed from the Badware Website Clearinghouse, which is explained here: http:\/\/www.stopbadware.org\/home\/faq#partnerwarnings-remove<\/p>\n

We consider the StopBadware a valuable self-help tool for protecting Internet users from potentially harmful software and applaud Google for its leadership in this area. If this incident demonstrates anything, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that an educational campaign would help users understand how the process works, why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good for all Internet users and that it is NOT censorship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once again we learn the value of doing a little research before posting.<\/p>\n

PFF comments on their blog here<\/a>.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE 2: On further analysis, it seems that we were right the first time. Google does in fact flag as containing malware the majority of PFF’s PDF documents on net neutrality, and none of these documents actually does contain malware, viruses, or exploits. It’s a case of “guilt by association” as they share a directory … Continue reading “Google not censoring PFF – or are they?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-4461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net-neutrality","tag-netneutrality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-19X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}