Google-porn site battle puts Internet freedoms in balance

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Key Internet freedoms are under threat in a legal battle between online search leader Google and pornography publisher Perfect 10, a prominent Internet rights foundation said.

At issue in the landmark case being appealed to the San Francisco circuit court of appeals is whether Google infringed on copyrights by creating links to Perfect 10 pictures copied from its website and posted elsewhere on the Internet, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

"The stakes are high and everybody is out expressing an opinion," EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann told AFP. "Links are really the whole enchilada when it comes to the worldwide web."

A Perfect 10 court victory would stifle the sharing of website links whether it be by bloggers,...