Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by paganel on Friday August 07, 2015 @04:18AM (#10021400)

I've worked for a Yelp-lookalike website in an Eastern European country, sometime in 2010. The whole thing cost my employer a lot of money to get started, think programmers' and sales people's salaries, to say nothing of the people that we had actually outside the office, walking the streets of our ten-or-so biggest cities and trying to document each and every local business.

And then, towards the end of 2010-early 2011, Google decided to enter the game with its Google Places. They had no people on the ground to collect businesses' addresses and make sure that the advertised phone numbers were actually correct. But, surprise, surprise, in a matter of less than 6 months all of this data was on Google Places. At the time I was actually telling my boss: "hey! at some point the EU is bound to do something! They cannot just rip people off like this". It "only" took the EU ~6years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by eru on Friday August 07, 2015 @04:36AM (#10021433)

Sorry, I don't follow. How did Google rip anyone off here?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by confluence on Friday August 07, 2015 @05:27AM (#10021566)

Scrapped the data most likely

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Dylan16807 on Friday August 07, 2015 @05:41AM (#10021614)

Well, countries have generally decided you can't copyright factual information, and they did that for a reason.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Kankuro on Friday August 07, 2015 @10:19AM (#10022609)

In the EU, it is illegal to copy a database of another entity even if it contains factual information (you can copy individual facts, but not a DB). Source: I realized that when I wondered if it was possible to copy names from Wikipedia into OpenStreetmap. The Wikimedia foundation ("owner" of the DB) is unlikely to sue OSM.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by gefh on Friday August 07, 2015 @01:56PM (#10023888)

Wikipedia data is available under a choice of open licenses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_co... They're unlikely to sue because 1. They don't want to, making information freely available is kinda their thing, and 2. They'd lose.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Kankuro on Tuesday August 11, 2015 @08:14AM (#10040393)

The ODbL license is not compatible with the Creative Commons license. (1) I know about their goal, and I also know that they are eager to collaborate with OpenStreeMap. So they would the sue. (2) I think it is the Database Directive of the EU which protects the databases, even if it is made of factual information.

To be more specific about my case, I wanted to import into OpenStreetMap the latin names ("romaji") of places from Wikipédia. But I had to check if it was allowed around the world. I read that in Australia it is not a problem, but it is hard to know about the rest of the world.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Dylan16807 on Friday August 07, 2015 @03:50PM (#10024596)

Sometimes. Apparently it's not actually enforced fully in all of the countries? And it's a pretty new law.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by tomp on Friday August 07, 2015 @05:57AM (#10021652)

That's not copyright. You can still enforce a licence on the data you provide. E.g. Exchanges do this all the time with market price data.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Dylan16807 on Friday August 07, 2015 @06:10AM (#10021691)

Sure, you can make licenses, but if someone gets a copy outside of the licensed channel, you have no recourse.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by tomp on Friday August 07, 2015 @06:34AM (#10021739)

Not sure about that... In general, if you buy a stolen car, it's still stolen, and while you won't be held criminally responsible, you'll still lose your money. I guess it's the same with data licences.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Dylan16807 on Friday August 07, 2015 @08:43AM (#10022090)

It's not really a license on the data. Data licenses are based on copyright laws, and grant permission under them.

Instead it's a contract with a nondisclosure clause, and contracts only bind the participants.

It's also not a trade secret, with access being sold so openly.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by confluence on Friday August 07, 2015 @05:50AM (#10021640)

I didn't say it was illegal.

They just didn't do the groundwork.

And I'm sure copying maps is illegal.

Place information? Hmmm. Maybe it should be too.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by Dylan16807 on Friday August 07, 2015 @06:13AM (#10021700)

>I'm sure copying maps is illegal.

You can't directly copy the artistry, things like label sizing and placement, but you can copy every road and city.

>I didn't say it was illegal.

I'm not commenting directly on the legality. I'm trying to refer to the deeper reasons that lead it to be legal. If it's truly ripping someone off to copy facts that they painstakingly collected through their sweat of the brow, why is there a specific exemption from copyright?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by eru on Sunday August 09, 2015 @09:41AM (#10030264)

Google respects robots.txt.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google’s $6B Miscalculation on the EU by confluence on Sunday August 09, 2015 @09:51AM (#10030285)

I'm sure you say you do.

[ Parent | on HN ]