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Ask HN: Legality of a Jan 18 SOPA blackout on Google?

25 points by goodweeds ↗ HN
I heard some people at a coffee shop today discussing the possibility of convincing facebook and google to shut down all of their services for a day because of SOPA, including google apps. While the anarchist in me was momentarily giddy at the whole idea, the realist makes me assume that there must be SLAs and service contracts for their commercial customers and their larger content providers and advertising partners. As awesome as it would be for Google to shut down everything and confuse the heck out of the world I'm sure the losses due to lawsuits and SLA fines would be massive.

31 comments

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nextparadigms
I was wondering about this, too, if some people won't just sue Google.
astrodust
People will sue Google anyway. They get sued over indexing embarrassing things that people have inadvertently published all the time.
Joakal
Wouldn't there be lawsuits against Google when content is taken down to comply with SOPA and other anti-Internet bills? Not to mention extra costs in complying, both in reputation loss and revenue.

I believe they will run it by the legal team anyway.

positr0n
I think their most effective move would be to black out google.com search, because that's what most people see. I see diminishing returns in shutting down their advertising and enterprise services.
nextparadigms
I don't see how the API's would be affected in any way. They wouldn't shut down all their servers to do this. They'd just have to take down their home page and replace it with something else, like a message against SOPA. Only Google.com users wouldn't be able to use it.
funthree
They are obviously not going to willingly violate any SLAs. Also the gov't is never going to shut down Google. Their site being offline would not be an accurate preview of any blackouts to come. SOPA is going to cost google money and headaches because they will have to deal with so many upset users. It is our websites that don't have billions of dollars that are actually under threat of being completely shutdown.
weaksauce
They will not get shut down but they will certainly be affected by this in a real and massive way. A non trivial amount(no citation) of their ad revenue comes from the marginal sites that could be shut down by a SOPA intervention. This will affect their bottom line. It makes good business sense to do something about it now instead of later.
mdda
> Also the gov't is never going to shut down Google.

Also the CHINESE gov't is never going to shut down Google.

Just adding a little perspective...

funthree
comparing the American gov't to the chinese gov't is jsut ridiculous in this context. american gov't cares too much about it's economy to do such a stupid thing
mcarrano
If Google does indeed do a complete blackout, it will cause chaos. Many people pay for Google services, many people use Google APIs. Then again a draconian bill like SOPA / PIPA may call for drastic measures such as a Google blackout.

I do feel that Google (along with other major Internet companies) should take a more active approach in opposing SOPA.

gojomo
Separate from contractual issues, the cost in terms of lost revenue for Google would be enormous. I suspect Google would have more of a positive effect donating a day's profits to the right organizations/candidates.

This 'race-to-imagine-the-most-widespread-blackout' can make people giddy, with thoughts of solidarity and grand symbolic gestures. But giddy is not necessarily effective or lasting.

Shoot for an obtrusive anti-SOPA Google doodle – with links to both examples of government-takedowns gone-mad worldwide, and ways to fight SOPA. That'd make more sense (and might convince more 'normals') than a showy bit of profit-destroying self-flagellation.

drivebyacct2
I certainly am not giddy about reddit being down for a day, or the thought that HN, Google or Facebook would follow suit. For me, it's desperation.
bfung
a monetary payout to stop SOPA doesn't really work in the long run. It promotes the behavior we have today where the most money wins (usually), and doesn't disincentivize future attempts.

I agree more with the doodle idea, or that every click to a search result brings up a modal dialog with a "contact your congress members" button.

Natsu
I doubt they'll really black it out. However, I could see them doing a doodle or something like that.

Or maybe they could have something that draws black censor bars all over random words in your results that fade away after a few seconds and put up a link explaining what's wrong? That would be relatively easy, especially for Google.

andrewflnr
I like your idea of blacking out random words. I don't think just a doodle is enough though. They do enough of those all the time that I usually just tune them out.
Natsu
I haven't done any JavaScript for a while now. I should see if there's a sensible way to hack something like that up. Maybe via lettering.js?

EDIT: Apparently Tumblr did something like this. That must be where I heard about the idea.

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51Cards
If Google wanted to do something visible they just have to flip the search page to a black background. Doesn't affect access to products but people will certainly notice.
tikhonj
I really doubt Google would do this, not just because of potential contracts or even the lost revenue but mainly because of how tentative their market share is.

The only thing locking most people into Google search is habit. If Google were to not work for a day, a ton of people would start using Bing and friends; a significant proportion of these would indubitably continue using them forever. Most people don't really care about which engine they use--until it fails. Once it fails, they'll flail around for a bit then use somebody else.

I think the damage to Google's reputation and market share would be too big for them to consider killing search for a day. I could see them doing a doodle or something though.

nestlequ1k
I totally agree. Blacking out is just stupid. Raising awareness via splash page or messaging is effective and important.

Please, let's not be retarded. If things black out one day, it'll just piss people off and the next day it'll be back to normal.

Let's encourage Google / Facebook / Twitter to use their huge audiences to spread awareness of the issue. When the public hears what SOPA is, they will reject it. The only way this thing will pass is if its sneaks in by the special interests.

Stop the blackout talk though

vnchr
Great perspective on how to adjust the message. Seems that a blackout feels drastic enough to match the outrage we expect from these brands whom we identify with.

If Tumblr got 87k calls to congress, Google or FB or Twitter should generate an order of magnitude more with well placed banners and popups.

dvdhsu
Please don't toss the word "retarded" around. Retards can't help being retarded. Using it as a synonym for "stupid" is crass.

It's no different from saying "SOPA is gay!!!"

Shenglong
Adjective: Less advanced, esp. mentally, than is usual for one's age. Synonyms: backward - delayed

Seems fine to me, especially considering it's no longer socially acceptable to use the word to describe the mentally disabled. Using gay however, is a completely different scenario. Retarded reflects on mental performance, while gay reflects on sexuality.

English already has so few words - we might as well use the ones we have.

dvdhsu
> Adjective: Less advanced, esp. mentally, than is usual for one's age. Synonyms: backward - delayed

The OP doesn't use it to mean "backwards" , "delayed" or "less advanced". He means "stupid" and should just say so.

> it's no longer socially acceptable to use the word to describe the mentally disabled

Looking on Wordnik [1], four dictionaries out of five list "retard" as having to do with mental retardation (Wordnet 3.0 actually doesn't mention it according to Wordnik, but a quick search reveals that it actually does [2]).

Wikipedia [3], in fact, argues that "mental retardation" is on a "euphemistic treadmill" [4]. I'll allow Wikipedia to take it away:

The terms mental retardation and mentally retarded were invented in the middle of the 20th century to replace the previous set of terms, which were deemed to have become offensive. By the end of the 20th century, these terms themselves have come to be widely seen as disparaging and politically incorrect and in need of replacement.

The term "mentally retarded" is no longer "socially acceptable", precisely because it perceived to be "disparaging".

> Using gay however, is a completely different scenario. Retarded reflects on mental performance, while gay reflects on sexuality.

People who are mentally disabled are unable to change it. As far as I know, the same applies to one's sexual orientation.

The OP uses the word "retarded" by saying "let's not be retarded". My state of retardation doesn't change from second to second; it's fixed at birth. Insulting what one can't change is the most powerful type of insult. If you call me "stupid", I can always work to be less ignorant. If you call me a "chink" because I'm Chinese, I can't change that, and I feel more insulted.

> English already has so few words - we might as well use the ones we have.

That's a horrible reason. Simply using the word "idiotic", "dense", or any other works just fine in the OP's sentence. None of those refer to immutable characteristics such as "gay", "retard", or "chink".

When communicating, there isn't any reason to use a potentially offensive word, especially when there are a plethora of less insulting ones available.

Edit: Changed "sexual preferences" to "sexual orientation". Thanks emmapersky!

-------------------------------------------

1. http://www.wordnik.com/words/retard

2. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=retarded&su...

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation#cite_note-is...

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism_treadmill#Euphemism_t...

emmapersky
> People who are mentally disabled are unable to change it. As far as I know, the same applies to one's sexual preferences.

Sorry, but I just had to point out the "Sexual Preference" implies choice, which, as you correctly point out is not something people choose. I think the phrase you were searching for was "Sexual Orientation"

wimpycofounder
I'm leery of people who have the time to write up walls of text like this.
VMG
> When communicating, there isn't any reason to use a potentially offensive word

Unless you want to offend. You might want to offend to signal the intensity of your rage. Minor range can warrant words like idiotic or stupid, major range calls for words like "fucking retarded git"

> The OP uses the word "retarded" by saying "let's not be retarded". My state of retardation doesn't change from second to second; it's fixed at birth. Insulting what one can't change is the most powerful type of insult. If you call me "stupid", I can always work to be less ignorant. If you call me a "chink" because I'm Chinese, I can't change that, and I feel more insulted.

Unless you really are retarded, he clearly meant that you shouldn't behave like somebody who is mentally disabled, so I don't see the similarity to the word "chink".

carucez
If Google shut off only it's search in protest of SOPA, wouldn't they run into anti-trust issues? I know technically, there's still Bing, but since they command the majority of the market, isn't this essentially the same as Rockefeller's give oil away for free to harm competition? Now, for sake of argument, the competition could be defined as any web company that happens to be pro-sopa, and Google's shutting down search could be viewed as malicious acts against a competitor ... you see where I'm going with this. IANAL.

Screw SOPA! If we lose this, we lose the internet... and we built the damn thing... each in our own small way.

tar
I don't think a Google blackout would be a good thing. They already make many Doodles for their home page. They can make one for SOPA to raise awareness.
mahmud
Google has been shutting down services to protest SOPA for years.
pbreit
I don't think Google would do a complete or even extensive blackout but I don't think SLAs would be the deciding factor (if Google has (m)any). I suspect if there was semi-consensus internally for Google to do something, it would figure out a clever way to participate.

This is why something like HackerNews deciding to participate matters. Not because of the HN audience but because of the momentum needed to get the bigger guys to go along.