In an effort to supposedly protect young people from accessing questionable, pornographic material through Google and its Image Search without age verification, German media group “Huch Medien GmbH” has filed court papers demanding that Arcor, the second-largest phone line provider in Germany, block access to Google. The papers were filed this week at the District Court of Frankfurt.
Huch themselves operate an adult website at amateurstar.de (we’re not going to link to that), and state that they will simply not sit back and watch Google’s image search display pornographic images for users of all ages who enter terms that would pull up such images. They also make the claim that “clearly prohibited animal pornography” can be viewed through the search engine.
Huch also claims that Arcor, as an internet access provider, should be aware that these websites are widely used, and are in a sense aiding and abetting Google in its “horrible breaches committed on these terrible websites.” Huch claims to have reported the matter to Arcor on November 20, and gave them time to comply with their wishes to block Google. Naturally, Arcor hasn’t complied, and who would honestly expect them to without any kind of a court order? Huch says they’ve received no response, and did not respond to a formal demand from their lawyer to cease and desist. Not happy with the lack of response, Huch decided to take matters to the courts.
Because Huch operates an adult site themselves, their motives are questionable. Are they really concerned about the welfare of youngsters, or, perhaps, are they hoping that in blocking Google.de and Google.com within Germany, their own adult images won’t be able to be accessed through image search, therefore forcing Germans who wish to view those images to visit their site and pay for them? It makes you wonder…
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6 responses so far ↓
Barry Schwartz on Dec 5, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Nice find.
Thogek on Dec 5, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Oh, that makes sense. Block Google for doing what it does. Are they going to act to block every Internet search engine out there? the German public’ll love that.
How about going after the sites posting/hosting objectionable images for placing their images out in the unsecured open where Google’s crawlers (or anyone else out there) could pick them up. There are ways to make your Web images difficult or impossible to crawl. Google also publishes well-known public interfaces for excluding content from Google’s index.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35308
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35301&topic=8459
Michael Martinez on Dec 5, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Actually, it does make sense. Google IS the largest purveyor of pornography on the Web and they provide it pretty much for free.
It’s almost impossible to do an image search outside of SAFE mode where you can be reasonably sure you won’t find pornography. But porn still shows up on occasion even in SAFE mode.
Without an age verification test, Google makes it quite possible for children to view pornographic content — which, as far as I am aware — is a violation of Federal law here in the United States (I don’t recall any specific exclusions for search engines).
Thogek on Dec 6, 2007 at 12:50 am
Google may well be the largest purveyor of content (of all sorts) on the Web. But don’t forget the Web hosts that housed that content on the Web in the first place, and your ISP as it downloads copies of content to your computer. They *all* facilitated the delivery of that pornographic material to the screen in front of your kids’ eyes. Shall we ban them all?
In fact, next time you get an adult-oriented ad in the U.S. Mail, be sure to file immediate charges against the U.S. Postal Service for having violated federal law and delivered such content into easy reach of your kids.
Again, Google (as well as most other search engines) publishes a very simple way in which any Web site can indicate to Google’s index to exclude all or any part of its content. This method can very easily be used by any halfway-responsible publisher of kid-objectionable material.
Go after the ones who put that material, without the most basic and responsible attempts to mark and protect it from such exposure, on the open kid-accessible Internet in the first place.
Or, just nail Google. But make sure to apply your line of reasoning fairly, which means also including every hand through which the pornography so easily passed on its way to your kids’ computers. Of course, that pretty much cuts off your ability to connect to the Internet…
Thomas on Dec 6, 2007 at 6:26 am
You have to keep in mind that there are very strict age verification regulations for the display of pornographic material in Germany. What is allowed on most US-based sites is strictly forbidden to German sites under German law - sample video clips of sexual intercourse or bestiality without any genuine age verification.
So they as a home player actually have a disadvantage to web sites outside Germany which don’t have to comply with these regulations. In the USA minors may watch these clips without problems. The same goes to sample pictures. And exactly these may be found via Google.
Of course, in the end this is just all about money. They don’t actually want to block Google or think they can achieve that. They just want to make a case that German pornographic sites are in fact discriminated in terms of a free market in Germany to foreign sites.
Some German sites alreday reacted and switched their base to the neighbouring Netherlands due to their rather easy-going attitude towards pornography.
Thogek on Dec 7, 2007 at 8:31 pm
IAC, I wonder if the recent Google blog post at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/googles-and-parents-role-in-keeping.html is at all related to what’s going on in Germany…
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