We have recently witnessed a Belgium news group going after Google and then pursuing MSN over copyright issues.

Now, Google is warning Australia that if they pass a newly proposed copyright law, it will “condemn” the Australian public to “the pre-Internet era.” Google’s senior counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, also told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, “If such advanced permission was required [to index pages], the internet would promptly grind to a halt.”

The proposed copyright rule would essentially require every “search engine to contact personally each owner of a web page to determine whether the owner desires its web page to be searched.” However, there is already an option to “opt-out” of search engine results available to site owners via the “robot.txt” method. Well, hopefully Australia takes Google’s advice. AFP via Search Engine Watch

And as Techdirt says, “This is the type of lawmaking that happens when lawmakers rely too much on a single industry (in this case, the entertainment industry) to detail the “problems” of the internet.”

We have recently witnessed a Belgium news group going after Google and then pursuing MSN over copyright issues.

Now, Google is warning Australia that if they pass a newly proposed copyright law, it will “condemn” the Australian public to “the pre-Internet era.” Google’s senior counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, also told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, “If such advanced permission was required [to index pages], the internet would promptly grind to a halt.”

The proposed copyright rule would essentially require every “search engine to contact personally each owner of a web page to determine whether the owner desires its web page to be searched.” However, there is already an option to “opt-out” of search engine results available to site owners via the “robot.txt” method. Well, hopefully Australia takes Google’s advice. AFP via Search Engine Watch

And as Techdirt says, “This is the type of lawmaking that happens when lawmakers rely too much on a single industry (in this case, the entertainment industry) to detail the “problems” of the internet.”