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When we first looked at the conviction of three Google employees by an Italian judge in late February, we agreed with Google's stance that the conviction attacked the very ideals of the Internet as we know it. The comments in reaction to this article were many and varied, often speculating on the reasoning behind the conviciton. Today, a CNet article identifies profit as the judge's reasoning behind the decision. Sponsor As Google stated when the convictions were first handed down, the case was concerned with a video of "students at a school in Turin, Italy [who] filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police." According to the Associated Press translation of the court document (pdf), the judge said Google's profiting off of the video was the reason behind the conviction. "In simple words, it is not the writing on the wall that constitutes a crime for the owner of the wall, but its commercial exploitation can," wrote Judge Oscar Magi, continuing to say that the Internet was no longer an "unlimited prairie where everything is permitted and nothing can be prohibited". Profit, especially that profit which is made from completely automated advertising systems, seems like an odd reasoning to hold a content provider responsible for the content uploaded by its users. The oft-quoted statistic to keep in mind here is that YouTube has more than 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to the service. Judge Magi, however, argues that "the overwhelming speed of technical progress will allow, sooner or later, ever more stringent controls on uploaded data on the part of Web site managers". Google gave CNET the following statement in response to the news: "We are reading the full 111-page document from the judge. But as we said when the verdict was announced, this conviction attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. If these principles are swept aside, then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear. These are important points of principle, which is why we and our employees will vigorously appeal this decision." We have to say, we still agree with Google on this one, as far as the spirit of the conviction goes. Holding the content host, YouTube in this case, liable for the content of its users attacks the very foundation of the Web. If, as some claim, Google knowingly allowed the content to stay on the site, then its a different story. But if the company immediately responded to official requests to remove the video, it should not be held responsible for its users' content. Discuss
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Italian Judge Says "Profit" Behind Google Convictions
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Nokia acquired location-based services company MetaCarta on Friday, a service with two distinct focuses: geosearch and geotagging . With MetaCarta's geosearch technology, the service finds content, data and information about a place and then presents it in a single mapped-based view using any map server, whether one from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, ESRI or another company. The geotagging technology, on the other hand, lets MetaCarta pull geographic references from online content and then allow that information to be used in other applications. Sponsor One of the more notable examples of MetaCarta technology is the NewsMap application, a hosted mashup that extracts the geographic information found in news articles and displays those locations as icons on a digital map. Users can then zoom in and out on the map to see where the news is happening and what stories correspond to the map icons. For a real-world example of how Newsmap works, you can visit DailyRecord , a news site which features an embedded "news map" at the bottom of their homepage. For another example of a similar technology, see Bing Maps's Local Lens application , a map layer that identifies news stories by city and neighborhood and maps them out using the Bing Maps service. (Bing Maps does not use MetaCarta's technology, it's just similar.) Although news maps like those above are somewhat interesting, the most intriguing thing about this new acquisition is not the map app, but the technology behind it. Basically, the geotagging aspect to the MetaCarta service can add location data to existing information that previously had none. In doing so, a company could build up a geo-database that could function as the backend for all sorts of location-based services from social apps to local search tools and more. And the need to have an accurate, rich and complete geo-database is going to be a key component to winning a top position in the emerging location-based services market. Nokia hasn't specified exactly how it plans to use the newly acquired company's technology, only saying that "MetaCarta's technology will be used in the area of local search in location and other services." It's not a leap, though, to assume that MetaCarta's technology could be integrated into Nokia's free Ovi Maps mobile application. Nokia has had a clear focus on location-based services as of late. The company acquired the social travel service Dopplr in September of last year and later launched turn-by-turn navigation for Ovi Maps in January. However, the company's largest mapping-related acquisition to date is still the $8.1 billion purchase of digital map provider Navteq in 2007. Discuss
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Nokia Expands its Geolocation Plans with Location Services Buy
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Our selection of the 10 most popular YouTube videos about the Web is of course based on page views. But we also filtered the results for videos that are most true to explaining the big-picture version of what the Web is. The selection includes some of the most creative ways the growth of the Web has ever been explained. The fast paced growth of the Web too often keeps us focused on the latest and greatest, to the point were we lose perspective for how the Web has changed over time. So let's take a step back and get a more culturally-oriented overview of the Web. From a 1969 film about an internet that didn't have a name , to the most recent video on the Future of Publishing - as both nostalgia and analysis, we offer you these videos to help you reflect. Sponsor Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us 10,892,454 views Internet People! 3,316,195 views History of the Internet 1,944,479 views Social Media Revolution 1,734,985 views Internet Party: When Google's parents leave town... 841,295 views 1981 primitive Internet report on KRON 643,333 views The Internet in 1969 567,941 views Web 2.0 544,862 views The Internet Stars Are Viral 434,424 views The Future of Publishing 431,759 views Discuss
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Top 10 YouTube Videos About The Web
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An anthropology professor from South Africa has successfully used Google Earth to find a new human ancestor. To be exact, he found two partial skeletons, dating from between 1.78 and 1.95 million years ago, that belong to the species now known as Australopithecus sediba . "Professor Lee Berger from Witswatersrand University in Johannesburg started to use Google Earth to map various known caves and fossil deposits identified by him and his colleagues over the past several decades," according to the Official Google Blog . Sponsor Berger developed a correlation between the appearance of caves in satellite images and the presence of fossil deposits. He started with 130 cave sites in the region around the Cradle of Humankind area northwest of Johannesburg, and about 20 fossil deposits. Using Google Earth's high-resolution satellite imagery, he was able to identify 500 previously unidentified caves and fossil sites. It was at one of those sites he found the new hominid. Discuss
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Scientist Uses Google Earth to Find Ancient Ancestor
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If you thought Google's Street View was ambitious, or even Google Earth , then the companies latest efforts to "fill in the 'blue' part of the planet" on Google Earth puts the rest to shame. That "blue part", after all, comprises more than 70% of the planet's surface. Google started mapping the ocean last year and today is announcing that the ocean layer "will become part of the default set of annotations seen by all Earth users". Sponsor Over the past year, the company has worked with more than 100 partners adding hundreds of placemarks to more than 20 ocean layers. Google has worked with National Geographic, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as the Mission Blue Foundation . The Mission Blue Foundation is working to create a series of protected marine areas called Hope Spots , all of which will be included in today's release. Google is also offering a " narrated tour " of eight of the proposed locations for "Hope Spots". While we support the efforts of Google Earth to increase awareness, we have to chuckle, ever so slightly, at one phrase in today's announcement: One of the greatest things about Earth is that it allows everyone to see and experience the fullness of their planet, from revisiting places they know well to venturing out to formerly unknown mountain peaks, desert vistas, and increasingly, the blue heart of life on Earth. We know, for some of you out there, for whatever valid reason, you might not be able to get out there and see the world, but for the rest of you, get off your duff and go climb a mountain in person. Go get you some woods, don't let Google do it for you "via satellite". Discuss
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Google Earth Fills In The Blue Parts
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