The Belgian courts have come to a verdict that Google is to remove all articles, photographs, and basically anything representing Belgian French publications.
Order the defendant to withdraw the articles, photographs and graphic representations of Belgian publishers of the French - and German-speaking daily press, represented by the plaintiff, from all their sites (Google News and “cache” Google or any other name within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of
1,000,000.- € per day of delay; ChillingEffects.org
After reading related materials and doing a search for any other articles on the topic, I really couldn’t find anything explaining *why* the content was forcibly being removed from Google’s database. Only that the government is having the content removed. I’ll post an update if I find any follow-ups on this. (via)
09/18/06 10:45pm *UPDATE*
Reading over some more articles related to this material, this is what I came up with.
“We are asking for Google to pay and seek our authorisation to use our content … Google sells advertising and makes money on our content,” said Copiepress general secretary, Margaret Boribon.Guardian
September 18th, 2006 at 6:12 am
There is no such thing as the government ordering google to do anything…
The court’s verdict is an interpretation of copyright and IP law that is identical all over the EU and the US.
I do not expect the verdict to be upheld however (see http://pascal.vanhecke.info/2006/09/17/belgian-court-ruling-on-google-news-both-confusing-and-a-dangerous-precedent/ )