Google Launches "Defend Your Net" Campaign in Germany Against Draconian Copyright Law

Google is facing the prospect of having to remove all links to news sites from its search results or Google News, which doesn't sound like fun for anyone involved. The company may be forced to do it if a proposed law comes into effect.

The law would have Google, and any other search engine for that matter, pay news sites for the links and titles it uses in search results to direct users to those very news sites. Similar legislation is being considered in France.

Common sense would dictate that if anyone should be doing the paying, it would be the news sites since they're the ones benefiting from traffic they would not otherwise get, but common sense and dying companies seldom have something in common.

So Google is gearing up for war, fittingly, a war of words. It's now trying to get people involved in fighting the legislation that would make all of this possible.

The "Defend Your Net" website (in German, of course) lays out the problem and what German users can do to fight it. Granted, it's self-serving, but users will be affected by the move since they'll be getting poorer quality results.