Google will protest SOPA using home page

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57360223-261/google-will-protest-sopa-using-popular-home-page/?part=rss&subj=latest-news&tag=title

by GBond • 15 years ago

502 104 15 years ago

news.cnet.com

jaysonelliot• 15 years ago

Google going dark would have been the most dramatic protest, of course, but I applaud them for this action.

I can't imagine Google taking the financial hit that would come from going dark for 24 hours, and I'm not certain how much more impactful that would have been, anyway.

I wonder, though, if they plan to include the SOPA message on their results pages as well? The Google home page is only seen by people who begin their searches at Google.com instead of using a browser toolbar or one of the myriad affiliate search boxes out there.

Symmetry• 15 years ago

Even not considering financials, I'd expect at least 1 death from people looking up medical information and not being able to get it if Google was entirely gone for a whole day.

EDIT: Of course most reasonable people will contact a medical professional rather than an internet search engine, that's why I guessed "at least 1" instead of "at least a couple hundred".

meroliph• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure there are other search engines that would still be available.

jmsduran• 15 years ago

When you have a medical emergency, you call 911 or go to the emergency room, not peruse Q & A sites for answers.

andyking• 15 years ago

Surely the best place to find medical information is via your GP / doctor, not Google?

rometest2• 15 years ago

if people are looking at google for medical information during serious cases, we are in a very bad state.

cscheid2• 15 years ago

Of course, this would need to be weighed against the probability that if SOPA passes, someone _else_ could die from not being able to look up some information because of SOPA.

jiggy20115• 15 years ago

Turning google of would effectively turn the internet off for many people. Not sure about deaths (it's possible I guess). I could see the following implications:

Tech support line for every ISP would be ringing off the hook all day. The same for IT support providers as people assume their PC has been hacked or has a virus.

Google receive 1000s of complaints from people swearing to move to bing.

A number of companies get sued due to contractual agreements that somehow relate to websites being accessible to search etc or because emails are not replied to because someone couldn't access their webmail etc.

Hundreds of thousands of homework assignments are not done.

Spike in number of births due to people having sex instead of going online.

SOPA still gets passed.

nikhilalmeida• 15 years ago

I agree with you. Thousands of people use google to search for critical information and loss of that for a day would cause losses in the tune of millions of dollars (if not billions) for a number of companies. I dont think that can be justified in an effort to raise awareness. To me putting a black mark across their logo would be good enough with a link and video explaining why SOPA is bad and why could it stifle innovation.

keithnoizu• 15 years ago

"Darnit, googles down. Should we try yahoo to look up pa's symptoms?"

"Nah he just has a pain in his shoulder and shortness of breath, he'll be fine, lets play some games on facebook"

fragsworth• 15 years ago

Google shutting down would probably cause a significant amount of awareness of the existence of Bing. This could be devastating to them. I would never expect a complete shutdown.

klausa• 15 years ago

I think you overestimate number of people who use searchboxes int their browsers - how many times we saw stories about people typing 'facebook.com' into Google?

I think the majority of users, especially non-technical (and I think majority of people that should see this message fall in this category), still uses google.com as a place to begin their searches.

sambeau• 15 years ago

Last time I looked "Google" was one the most searched for items on Google due to people typing it into browser search fields to get Google so they can search for something on Google.

I've watched people do this.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

I bet a lot of them do. I know people who still have Yahoo! as their homepage.

As for me, I have hardly visited the Google homepage since modern browsers introduced the search bar.

knorby• 15 years ago

It will give greater legitimacy to other sites protesting, just from news reports including google on the list of companies taking part. I'm guessing the news stories will end of having much more influence than whatever google links to.

j_baker2• 15 years ago

I would imagine the vast majority of users would notice something in their Google results before they notice a name in a news report. People search every day. Not everyone reads the news every day (sadly).

j_baker2• 15 years ago

You know, this actually makes me wonder what the impact on the economy would be if Google went down for a day. I would imagine a lot of people would just use Bing for a day (which would probably be terrible for Google in and of itself), but I wonder how many peoples' jobs would be temporarily halted due to not having Google and not knowing of any other search engine to use.

For that matter, I wonder what the economic impact of Wikipedia shutting down will be. It's just one of those things that I haven't imagined a world without. On the bright side, I suppose that there might be a positive benefit to the economy if Reddit shuts down.

Kadrith• 15 years ago

I would love to see two things from Google:

  * Change the logo; even just a black bar through the middle since the logo gets a lot of attention.

  * For any SOPA/PIPA supporter's site in their results, mark it in some way.  Don't block it, but indicate that this is a supporter and use that to demonstrate what SOPA/PIPA might do.  This allows people to ignore those sites if they want, but does not remove them from the index or cause any permanent harm.

abjr• 15 years ago

Or at least change the logo to all black...

Zolo• 15 years ago

They could also replace the search bar with a prompt, reminding the user that the quality and breadth of search results currently available to them will suffer if the legislation passes. Once they click "Ok" they can go on searching, but at least throw out a warning that things will change for everyone if SOPA/PIPA makes it through.

LisaG3• 15 years ago

Google really should go dark, even if it is only for a few hours. Policymakers need to understand that if the internet gets broken, it will have repercussions well outside of silicon valley.

sehugg• 15 years ago

Google would likely face wrath from investors, as well as breaking agreements with partners. Their legal department would need therapy.

gojomo• 15 years ago

'Most dramatic' ≠ 'most effective', at least not always.

For example, tantrums are dramatic, but can create more resentment than sympathy.

bad_user• 15 years ago

Google going dark would basically turn the Internet off, unlike Wikipedia, as Google is to normal people a proxy to the whole Internet.

They've got a big responsibility on their shoulders and as much as I hate SOPA, Google going dark would be completely irresponsible and I would think less of them.

SarahSmiles2• 15 years ago

Weak. Google should participate in the blackout.

Twitter seems to not care about SOPA, but Google claims to be actively working against SOPA - they should walk the walk if they are going to talk the talk. With this "message" on their homepage (which as jaysonelliot pointed out is not even seen by many people) they get the branding of being in support of an open web but don't have to actually take action the way Wikipedia, Boing Boing, etc are going to.

Just window dressing from the PR department. Disappointing but not at all surprising.

mdwrigh2• 15 years ago

> With this "message" on their homepage (which as jaysonelliot pointed out is not even seen by many people)

How is 64% of their traffic (89 million visitors in 2009)[1] not "many people"?

[1] http://blog.compete.com/2009/04/21/home-page-visitors-top-pu...

SarahSmiles2• 15 years ago

Wow I am surprised by that. I stand corrected, my apologies. That is what I get for taking anecdotal experience and extrapolating ;) I can't remember the last time I went to Google.com, but evidently heaps of people go there.

But I stand by my opinion that this is a weak response from Google.

dhconnelly• 15 years ago

Thank you for finding this.

rometest2• 15 years ago

now it will be like who will do the blackout next. Facebook, twitter, yahoo, aol etc

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

So what will Bing do tomorrow?

baddox2• 15 years ago

I doubt anyone will check.

fauldsh• 15 years ago

Tenuous link (was mentioned in the article)

I find it more astonishing that Rupert Murdoch would have the gall to say on twitter: "So Obama has thrown in his lot with. Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery. -"

wmeredith• 15 years ago

It's a mix of both gall and ignorance made really dangerous with a massive dose of power.

drivebyacct2• 15 years ago

There are just so many things that don't make sense in this statement, not a single bit of it is unworthy of criticism. Any other time a Rupert-type or Republican would chastize Obama for not supporting the startup "innovators" that are also against this bill. I'm not sure what "paymaster" is meant to imply and "software creators" are by-and-large against SOPA/PIPA. Then of course the entire piracy = theft discussion. Sigh. I don't know about gall, I think it's purely ignorance, maybe just enabled by gall.

sebphfx• 15 years ago

something more original: Google should put their background black and leave the text black,so people would have to highlight the text to be able to see. It would be like trying to find candles in a real blackout!

reidmain• 15 years ago

Looks like those tech illiterate Senators brought a knife to gun fight.

Actually it is more like they are duelling with their ammo supplier and then are surprised when the don't have any bullets.

jasonjei• 15 years ago

An easy way to show solidarity with SOPA protesters is whenever the main Google page is loaded (not when a query is already passed to Google) is to have it load black with some text saying how this is Internet might look like if SOPA is passed, followed by it fading into the normal google page, with maybe some text below the bar to contact legislators within the local area.

Kroms2• 15 years ago

This makes me uncomfortable. The implications of a corporation - especially a corporation as big as Google - being actively involved in politics are scary. You may find yourselves cheering for them now, but what about the day Google is involved in something against your interests or political views? This move makes that a possibility.

ender7• 15 years ago

The sad fact is that corporations are already deeply involved in this bill - where do you think it came from in the first place?

msg• 15 years ago

I hate to break it to you, but there is no Santa Claus, corporations are heavily involved in politics, and Google using their logo for political advocacy does not open up the gates to a new era of corporate political activism.

If anything, internet corporations are showing up late to the game.

Pewpewarrows• 15 years ago

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but corporations are the leading driving force behind almost all of USA's politics. I can count on one hand the number of Representatives and Senators combined that have NOT been bought and paid for by giant corporations. The same goes for non-trivial pieces of legislation passing through either the House or Senate with corporate sponsorship.

Kroms2• 15 years ago

I'm aware that corporations are involved in politics; you misunderstand me. I mean to say, I find the idea of Google advertising something political so explicitly on their front page a little bit discomforting. The same applies to Wikipedia's decision to go with the "nuclear option", a blackout. It feels like it opens all sorts of doors with nasty implications. But that's just me.

hammerdr• 15 years ago

Just a minor correction:

It is pretty widely accepted hypothesis that politicians do not "corrupt" when they are elected to office but that corporations support politicians which favor their positions. Politicians that have money have legitimacy. Legitimate candidates get elected.

Couple that with the fact that corporations often donate to 50+ candidates (on both sides of the aisle) and not only do they have a pre-polling vote (through money) but they also get to play in many elections.

It's the house vs. the people and the house always wins.

jiggy20115• 15 years ago

I think the point is: Suppose google blackout for a day, since they have never done this before afaik it will give them insight into how crucial their service is (or isn't) to the population in general.

If they saw that modern society could not function without them then they could then effectively hold legislators over a barrel and say "pass law X or we turn it off", these laws might not always be things we would like.

Of course if they pulled that enough times I'm sure another engine would come along and replace them.

This is a problem I have with centralized software and data that is proprietary to one company, I imagine Google and Facebook could legally do some pretty nasty things if they wanted to.

rnernento• 15 years ago

I'm starting to get the feeling tomorrow is going to be crazy. I don't think congress is prepared for this. Their approval rating already abysmal, and I predict this will put a LOT of people into action.

manojlds• 15 years ago

IMO, having some notice on the home page is not a great deal at all. I rarely every go to the Google home page. I just use the search bars on the browsers. The rare time is to see some doodle.

Google should go dark like Wikipedia. That will have the biggest impact, and of course, the impact will be much bigger than the Wikipedia black out.

cosmez• 15 years ago

do you think of yourself as an average computer user? almost everyone i know use google's homepage as their personal homepage.

Of course it will have an impact, just like a normal doodle

polshaw• 15 years ago

They should replace their logo with a big black rectangle. This would get everyone's attention (not just google.com visitors).

They don't need to commit commercial suicide by shutting off their site ('hey, bing isn't that bad..'), but this is pretty weak.

mortenjorck• 15 years ago

I really hope they do a SOPA doodle tomorrow.

Garbage• 15 years ago

From the post:

In response to questions about how the protest link would be displayed on the page, all Google would say is that the link would not replace the company logo.

jebblue• 15 years ago

Wonder if Google and Wikipedia would consider going dark to show support for the right legislation to stop online thieves.

SATANRULES• 15 years ago

Anyone gone to Craigslist lately? They've put up a black wall with info about pipa/sopa visible for 20 seconds. Then a link to the regular site appears.

Google will protest SOPA using home page

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