Copiepresse won the case against Google

Feb 14, 2007 09:18 GMT  ·  By

Google News is currently one of the most attractive news services on the Internet because it allows you to read latest information and headlines from multiple categories using a single webpage. The product is working quite easy because it gathers information from sources located in the entire world, organizes and publishes it on the main page of the service. Google News was often criticized for its procedure, being attacked for receiving praises while the service is based only on the information provided by other publishers.

As you might know, the search giant was sued by Copiepresse, a Belgian newspaper publication that filed a complaint against Google sustaining the company published their information without authorization. Although Google's employees are currently providing some simple methods to communicate with the company if you want to remove your content from the service, Copiepresse mentioned that Google infringed its copyright and used its news without approval.

Yesterday, a Belgian court ordered Google to remove all the news provided by the publications included in Copiepresse and delete all the content that infringes copyright. Today, Google's representatives posted a message on the official blog, sustaining the company will appeal the order because Google News and Google.be are entirely legal and are very important for Google users.

"Today we heard that the Belgian court, which last year ruled against us in the Copiepresse case has reaffirmed its original decision. This judgment is clearly disappointing, and we intend to appeal it because we believe that Google.be and Google News are entirely legal and provide great value and critical information to Internet users. However, we are very pleased that the judge agreed Google should be given notice of articles and other material that content owners want removed. As we have in the past, we will honor all requests to remove such materials," Rachel Whetstone, European Director of Communications and Public Affairs, sustained in a blog post published on the main page of the service.