Google removes "Kodi" from search autocomplete in "anti-piracy" effort
47 replies, posted
That's just ridiculous argument, many media players have plugin systems. I doubt even VLC media player thought twice before adding their plugin system.
Kodi's biggest crime apparently was being a media center with a UI that was free to distribute. Something which sellers abused. I still doubt Kodi's developers could have predicted any of this.
Yet another reason to use Bing.
/s
I might be the only one, but I've always known Kodi as a media player, especially for set-top box setups, and had no clue it could be used for piracy like this until now.
Thanks for informing me by pointing it out, Google?
Google can punish whoever they want. Despite how unfair or incorrect it is, as far as the law is concerned it can do whatever it wants so long as it doesn't break the law. Denying Kodi from showing up in autofill is entirely within their rights being a private entity. If this were a public (government owned) search engine I'd be right up there with everyone else on the issue, but the fact of the matter is google is a private entity who can and does selectively choose who and what it wants to promote or suppress.
are they gonna ban android and bluestacks too for making it easy to view illegal content through that one app
There's a point where a company gets so big (like twitch) that they de facto can control wether or not other businesses suceed or don't succeed or can heavily affect them, being a private company doesn't excuse anti competitive practices.
The fact that google can single out a particular product and change how it shows up to users in order for it to have less exposure is dangerous.
Then vote for senators and representatives that will treat them as such. Until the law is changed there's jack squat you can do about it, and believe me when I say MANY people will push back on it because of the type of precedent it would set.
It's a four letter word, just how many people were actually finding it via autocorrect in the first place?
Maybe not in the US, but in the EU Google can be reprimanded for this (as they have before with their Google Shopping activities). Why do you speak from a completely US legal perspective? Other parts of the world actually have laws on anti-competitive practices, which I believe are important ways to limit a company's power.
Because the ramifications mostly apply to the US, as in the EU something like this can be brought to court where in the US the best that could be done would be a civil suit.
Yes, I understand that. You do know that the poster you were replying to lives in the EU? The ramifications apply to everyone right now. If kodi were to complain to the EU, or if Google were to do this more often, the EU would respond. I'm saying that Google is breaking EU laws.
This is the most useless anti-piracy measure ever implemented. It's completely negated by the amount of people who didn't know what Kodi was before they read this article, and even if that weren't the case, what is making people type out four letters instead of one going to do to stop them searching it?
If I saw "Kodi" pop up in auto-complete I wouldn't just think "Hey, what's that?" and search it, I'd probably just ignore it.
BHuge flaw in your argument is that Kodi is open source. Even if the devs could to that, which is next to impossible without crippling Kodi, they can just compile their own version that does allow it. Making it effectively impossible. You have completely unrealistic expectations for their responsibilities over what people do on an open platform.
ya the article makes it clear but it also says they are going after the people just making the boxes without software as well
I'm pretty sure stuff like this isn't legal in a lot of europe, don't quote me on that though.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.