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Internet sets impose blackout to protest bill

China.org.cn, January 19, 2012

• English-language Wikipedia has locked its website for the SOPA/PIPA blackout today.

  More than 7,000 websites including Wikipedia are blacking out their websites on Wednesday to protest the pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act, the latest move from Silicon Valley to take on Hollywood in their anti-piracy bill battle.

  Since Midnight Tuesday, English-language Wikipedia, search engine Mozilla, online classified advertisement service Craigslist and social news website Reddit are some major websites that completely remove their sites' content for a day. Other internet giants, like Google, put a black marking or links on their homepage to show solidarity with protest.

  "The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia," said the site on its blackout page.

  Meanwhile, Google on Tuesday offered advice on how to blackout websites without hurting their search engine optimization (SEO) which is a process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via natural search results.

  On Wednesday, Google also slows down its web crawlers to reduce the effect on sites'search rankings if they did not follow the Google SEO advice on Tuesday.

  Also on Wednesday, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg came out against the bills with a post on his social network, noting the company is against SOPA and PROTECT IP Act. Facebook had been remaining silent with the bills until Wednesday and Zuckerberg's post gained more than 57,000 likes in seven minutes.

  SOPA is in the process of discussion at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. It aims to allow the U.S. Department of Justice as well as copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement and enable them to ask search engines, Internet ad firms, online payment companies, broadband providers and domain name providers to make the offending sites invisible.

  A U.S. Senate committee approved the similar PROTECT IP Act ( Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) which is currently pending before the full senate.

  The proposed bills set a war between Silicon Valley tech companies and Hollywood media firms. Both sides have vowed to fight till death with millions of dollars shed in lobbying as well as TV and newspaper ads.

  Last month, an open letter signed by tech heavyweights including founders of Google, Twitter, PayPal, the Huffington Post, Netscape and Wikipedia was published as a full-page ad in major U. S. newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post. It said the proposals would impose technology barriers for the Internet and holds back innovations and growth in the industry and possible Internet censorship in the U.S..

  Last Saturday night, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp, blasted U.S. President Barack Obama and Google via Twitter. He accused the White House of being employee of "Silicon Valley paymasters" and called Google a "piracy leader," claiming the company was profiting from advertisements selling pirated materials.

  In a statement on Sunday, Google called Murdoch's allegations " nonsense." Google and other internet companies have proposed an OPEN Act (Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade) as an alternative to SOPA, trying to limiting lawsuits for them by limiting their responsibilities to eradicate access to piracy sites and demand less involvement of the U.S. government in the bills.

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