Malaysia Explorer

By Edwin Yapp

Plug into the latest on the Internet, mobile and multimedia

The Net is meant for linking

Posted in Malaysia Explorer by Oon Yeoh on Tuesday, October 31 2006 09:04 AM

Google has been fined €34 million because of a Belgian court order to remove all links to French- and German-language Belgian news sources as of September 5, 2006.

Daily fines of one million Euros per day accumulated until lawyers for Copiepresse of Belgium were satisfied that Google was removing its links to Copiepresse news items.

In the end, Copiepresse asked that the fines be suspended, leaving Google with €34 million to pay.

The issue of deep links is a hotly contested one. Even if Copiepresse is in the right, it is doing itself harm by not allowing Google News to link to its news items. Can't they see that Google is just bringing them traffic?

Disclaimer:
Views and opinions expressed in this blog are the author's, and do not necessarily represent those of ZDNet Asia.

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About the blogger

Edwin Yapp

An engineer by training, Edwin first cut his teeth as a cellular radio frequency optimization engineer in one of Malaysia's largest telcos. After more than five years, he hung up his radio engineering boots to try his hand at technology reporting at The Star, Malaysia's leading English daily, where he won several awards for Best Online Technology reporting. He left to start his own editorial consultancy and is now a freelance journalist for several publications, including ZDNet Asia. A self-confessed gadget geek, Edwin hopes his blog contributions will stir up deeper discussions within the Malaysian technology scene.