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| Feds Seize New Domain, Add To “Batshit” Conspiracy Theories Posted: 08 Jun 2011 03:59 AM PDT Over the past year we’ve grown used to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement seizing piracy and counterfeit product related domains. Yesterday, however, a domain was seized which didn’t appear to sell or offer anything other than information. Lowellsfacts.com, was a domain operated by anti-vaccine and self-described “medical research” and “truth information” blogger Lowell Hubbs. Others who appear to know the guy much better than us describe him as a deranged “batshit” conspiracy theorist, but since we do file-sharing news here at TorrentFreak and not pharmaceuticals or psychiatric studies, others more knowledgeable than us can decide if that’s a reasonable assessment. We’re interested in something else; if Lowellsfacts.com was not a site offering unauthorized files or peddling counterfeit products, why would the feds seize it and put up the all too familiar ‘copyright’ notice? Well, according to Lowell Hubbs himself, he’s the victim of foul play. “Apparently, as I was told; there are links or hidden links hacked into my site that go to illegal porn and as well likely music down loads or movies, or links to counterfeit something,” Hubbs explains. “I don’t know what is in there personally, nor how they did it, and I don’t know yet all of what is going on; I am just getting beginning information, by someone who has looked into it and is more knowledgeable than I as to computer systems,” Hubbs adds. In a later update, Hubbs announced that he had found the problem. He asserts that someone had indeed hacked into this website and put up 17 pages and 70gig of files. He insists, however, that none of this is down to him. “How in the hell would I have acquired anything like that? For anyone to believe I am responsible for that, I can tell you – you are flatout-insane!” he exclaims. “Anyone with any common sense looking at this picture, would know the chance of that is zero! Period. Nice try though, just one more attempt to falsely destroy me, and a huge one. There is nothing these people will stop at in attempting to do so. Too much truth.” If the claims of Hubbs being a conspiracy theorist are true, then this seizure – whether warranted or otherwise – is a gift to his cause, whatever that might be. Whether or not it will be a gift to the big pharmaceutical companies he’s been bad-mouthing for sometime will remain to be seen. Hubbs’ site is now back up at VacFacts.info and aside from questionable content and quite a lot of cut and pastes, it doesn’t look like a hub of wanton copyright infringement or counterfeiting to us, at least in its current form. Admittedly there are a multitude of worrying claims about Hubbs on the web (which we aren’t in a position to verify) and he clearly has dozens of enemies and it is feasible that ICE had good reasons to shut him down. That said, Hubbs doesn’t appear to have been informed about why his domain was taken and he’s clearly not under arrest. So why has ICE seized the domain and put up the copyright notice? If we had some due process, some proper hearings which allow the facts to come out into the open and disputed or confirmed, any claims of copyright infringement could be assessed. As usual the public is in the dark. Conspiracy theories can be dangerous things, and the information vacuum along with this very strange domain seizure simply throws fuel on the fire. Source: Feds Seize New Domain, Add To “Batshit” Conspiracy Theories |
| Google Expands Piracy-Related Keyword Filter Posted: 07 Jun 2011 08:09 AM PDT
Google users who now search for terms like “torrent”, “BitTorrent” and “RapidShare” will notice that no suggestions and search results will come up before they type the full word. This week this list was expanded with (at least) one new term – Mediafire. By censoring parts of their search services, Google is sending out a strong signal that they are committed to combating online copyright infringement. Thus far, however, the list of forbidden words still appears to be arbitrary. Why add the name of the file-hosting service Mediafire but not direct competitors such as Hotfile and Fileserve? Why delist the BitTorrent client uTorrent but not its main competitor Vuze? Speaking with TorrentFreak, Google spokesman Mistique Cano reiterated what the company announced in a blog post late last year. “We are removing terms from Autocomplete where we find that those terms are closely associated with infringing results.” Google could not provide us with a full list of banned terms or elaborate on the selection process. “It's not easy [to share the keywords] and the list will undoubtedly change over time,” we were told. “When evaluating terms for inclusion, we examine several factors, including correlation between the term and results that have been subject to valid DMCA takedown notices,” Google’s spokesman added. Although Google is not able to inform the public what terms they deem to be closely connected to infringing behaviors, the company does believe that their measures could help to decrease online piracy. “While there is no silver bullet for infringement online, this measure is one of several that we have implemented to curb copyright infringement online.” “This is something we looked at and thought we could make some narrow and relatively easy changes to our Autocomplete algorithm that could make a positive difference,” Google’s spokesman said. The above is interesting, since Google decided to fight a request from a French music rights organization last year, who demanded that Google would implement a similar filtering measure. Apparently they changed their minds. Aside from censoring piracy-related terms, Google is also preventing various other terms from appearing through their Autocomplete and Instant services. Typing in “tits”, for example, is subject to the same treatment as the piracy-related words. “We also take a similar approach to a narrow class of terms related to pornography, violence and hate speech. These steps do not remove any results from search results or prevent users from typing any term they choose into their queries,” Google’s spokesman explained. Admittedly, the impact of the censoring of the Autocomplete and Instant features are not that dramatic. However, Google’s willingness to interfere with parts of their search service to combat piracy will motivate rights holders to request even broader filters. Also, Google’s definition of “narrow changes” is worrying when a dictionary word such as “torrent” and trademarks of legitimate businesses such as “BitTorrent” and “RapidShare” are blacklisted. The big question is, where will they draw the line? |
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