Federal judge orders Google, Facebook to "de-index" 700 domain names

[Dover]

Source: Digital Trends

Announced earlier today out of Nevada, Judge Kent Dawson ordered that luxury goods designer Chanel now has the legal right to seize domain names of over 700 sites that are attempting to sell counterfeit Chanel products. These domain names can be taken over by Chanel and transferred to domain registrar GoDaddy. All pages would then be redirected to an online notice of the seizure. The federal judge also ordered that all search engines and social networks “de-index” the sites in question. Sites specifically named in the ruling include Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. None of the site owners have the right to contest the removal of the domain from search engines or contest the transfer of ownership until after the domains are seized.

According to Arstechnica, an additional 228 sites were seized earlier this month after an investigation was presented to the courts. The investigation involved a private investigator hired by Chanel to make purchases on a sampling of the sites. The investigator ordered counterfeit items from approximately one percent of the sites on the list in order to provide proof of illegal activity to the courts. The judge made no indication on a timeline for de-indexing the domain names from search engines and Google still lists the mentioned domain names within search results. The judge also didn’t explain how search engine companies and social networks should censor the links outside of the United States. It’s also highly unlikely that social networks will be able to filter links that are using third party URL shortening services.

Similar to the result of this court case, the U.S. government also executed seizure orders on 150 domains that were proven to be selling illegal counterfeit goods.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-orders-google-facebook-index-700-domain-040020144.html

[quakerboy]

1. Seems odd

On the one hand, they need to act to protect their trademark, I suppose.

On the other, it seems fishy that they can shut down 700 sites with hard evidence from only 7 of them. I would think they would be required to prove each one.

I find I am also curious how they can prove they are counterfeit, as I was under the impression that most of the counterfeits are produced in the same Chinese factories that the originals were.

[DCKit]

2. "...most of the counterfeits are produced in the same Chinese factories..."

We're not supposed to know that.

[dipsydoodle]

3. If you search

you'll find its quite easy to confirm that some Chanel stuff is made in China and Taiwan. I fell into the trap of only asscoiating their name with perfume but of course they make handbags etc too.

[No Elephants]

4. She started her career as a licensed hatmaker.

Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971)<1> was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel. Her extraordinary influence on fashion was such that she was the only person in the couturier field to be named on Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.<2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel

From time to time, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer)would self-importantly proclaim that the couch in his Seattle apartment was an exact copy of the one in Coco Chanel's Paris atelier. (Maybe he owed a license fee, too?)

[dipsydoodle]

5. Interesting history of Channel No 5 here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanel_No._5

:hi:

[drm604]

6. How does Facebook de-index something?

FB is not a search engine. How does it de-index something?