December 09, 2004

New "Google Groups" Mangles Netnews Messages + Related Copyright and Privacy Issues

Greetings. When Google obtained the massive Usenet netnews archive some years ago and became the de facto netnews repository via their "Google Groups" service, there were concerns expressed that they might attempt to assert ownership or otherwise leverage these materials, most of which are at least in theory under the original copyright control of their authors.

Google's new version of Google Groups appears to include a feature, ostensibly one assumes for spam control, with significant potential privacy and other serious problems (based upon my current observations of how the system is operating).

I urge you to examine the details.

Thanks very much.

--Lauren--

Posted by Lauren at December 9, 2004 10:24 AM | Permalink
Twitter: @laurenweinstein
Google+: Lauren Weinstein