Tuesday, October 31, 2006

How bizarre but perhaps I don't understand ...

Fons Tuinstra writes: Google has to pay at least a fine of €34 million (currently about $43,231,000 USD) because it has been unable to comply with a Belgian court order to remove all links to French- and German-language Belgian news sources as of September 5, 2006. I learned this from Dutch media, since the Belgian media disappeared from my radar.

Google was unable to find out which domain names where covered by the court order and so could not clean up its database. Google has now asked the publishers to help identify these domains, so it can comply with the court order.

After Google asked for their help, the publishers agreed last Friday to halt the daily €1 million fine. Google and the Wallonian media are currently negotiating an agreement.

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