Look at this! Google had a competition to see who could design the Google Australia Day logo and this year’s winner is this one:
(I have made some helpful notations)
Not bad – I quite like it. See how it spells G-O-O-G-L-E? Haha they should do that more often.
But this is not what made it on to the google oz search page. No!
This is what appears!
Why do google hate Aboriginal Australia? Do no evil? I don’t think so.
This is why Australian Owned Google should be ashamed of itself. What would Australian of the Year, world-renowned psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry say? He would probably say “Close the detention centres Kevin, you know you want to!”. I love him and his aerodynamic beard.
Anyway, we pretended to speak to someone from Google and this is what they might have said “Australia has a proud history of something or other and that is really important to the Google. Put that down, you might break it. And take off that dog suit, you look ridiculous. Anyway, that flag pisses some people right off and whatever we say, we are primarily in it for the cash so whatever, kind of like that guy in the previous post I can see over there, the unaustralian of the year fellow, that guy is just a giant evil sphincter walking around pretending to be a guy” but they didn’t say any of that which is a pity because it would make Australia Day way more hilarious.
Update – Someone has hacked the Google website and added some nonsense about the flag being copyright so they couldn’t use it. Obviously this was done just to make me look bad because 1. Like the internet I have ever been wrong, and 2. I have certainly never just made shit up or written a post without knowing all the facts. Why do Australians hate facts so much?
24 Comments
Google aren’t fascists … they’re FRIGGING fascists!
Actually, Google’s motto has never been “Do no evil”. People have just assumed that it is.
Way back Google’s founders published something about how it’s possible to do business without being evil. They never actually said they themselves would work that way, they just expressed a hypothesis. But heck, why would you correct that myth, now that it’s repeated endlessly?
According to Google:
You may have noticed that the Google Doodle on the homepage today is slightly different to Jessie’s original entry, because that one contained copyright imagery that we weren’t able to publish on the homepage today. However, I think you’ll agree it’s still absolutely beautiful, and inspires lots of wonderful ideas about the Australia of our future.
The Aboriginal flag is protected under Australian copyright law.
The Dog is clearly hurting because he was not named Australian Canine of the Year (despite me spamming the committee on his behalf).
Attacking Google is probably unaustralian – they are a laidback mob and slightly full of themselves just like us.
Try to relax today (do a bit of work in the backyard and then watch the cricket).
Google could have avoided the “Google is un-Australian” meme spreading quite that quickly if they’d put that explanation on the winning entry page, make it far more prominent in the blog post that Tim Bennett just linked to and actually said specifically which copyright element they removed.
That would have even given Google the opportunity to link to the history of the flag and do a bit of education.
But no, it was typical corporate bland-speak which avoided actually saying what they were talking about. Fools.
newsflash to google: just about every picture “contains copyright imagery”, but that doesn’t stop you displaying millions of them. damn, you even have a tab for ‘image’ search results.
ps does this mean google will now stop displaying search results for any article from news corporation, just to make sure they don’t infringe on rupert’s copyright?
http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/symbols/otherflag.cfm says:
Google’s failure is they didn’t get the permission they needed, I guess they didn’t think it was needed.
Over at Fairfax, Asher Moses has filed Oh dear: Google flagged over logo dispute. Long story short, Google did seek permission to use the Aboriginal Flag from Harold Thomas, but it was refused. It’s worth reading in full for Thomas’ side of the story.
@Zarquon: The failure would appear to be not by Google, but by an 11yo girl — but that kind of moral outrage is a bit harder to stomach, no? As I’m seeing the timelines here, Google did reproduce her copyright-breaching image originally, but then sought permission to use it on their home page, which was then refused.
You could argue that Google should have sought permission before announcing the girl’s doodle as the winner. But I’m guessing — I haven’t the time to look just now, I’m leaving for an appointment — that the terms and conditions of the competition required entrants to warrant that the work was their own and there were no copyright problems. That sort of legal boilerplate is common enough.
@jaytie: While there’s currently no “fair dealing” copyright exemption for search engines to display thumbnails of the images they index, or brief extracts of the documents they index, there is lobbying happening to include one.
I have to say I’m finding it a bit tricky to figure out who to blame in this situation. It is Australia Day so it must be someone’s fault. It would be unaustralian if we couldn’t point the finger at somebody.
Possible Blamees
- The aboriginal flag guy? It would be unaustralian NOT to blame the aboriginal guy but would it still be scorching political satire? No, it would not.
- The 11 year old girl? The 11 year old girls I know do not empty the dishwasher when it is their turn, do not clean their rooms and actively misrepresent the amount of television they have watched this week so it would not surprise me at all, but getting her to admit it without her storming out of the room and slamming the door might be a bit tricky.
- Google? They don’t want to infringe copyright but they’re happy to keep the people of China in the dark right up until it starts to cost them money.
- I know we all agree that it is not my fault because that would be ridiculous and anyway this is my blog, aren’t we having a nice conversation, it’s almost like The Stump or Pure Poison except without the wingnuts!
I vote for Google.
I am outraged that you are outraged !! It’s outrageous.
I have attempted to placate my outrage by making a little aboriginal flag to stick on my computer screen, so the artist’s original vision is reinstated.
I also made a little Kraft logo to stick on my ArseSnack 2.0 poster.
I’m feeling aussie as !!
I can loan you some of our wingnuts if you’d like?
I am sure that, given the desire for wing- nuttery, we can safely blame Kevin Rudd for having the effrontry to be a Labor Prime Minister. Also I believe the leaked IPCC emails have quite a bit to say on the issue of copyright of the Aboriginal Flag, and it’s Causal link to Global preponderance of denialists.
Furthermore once Tony Abbotts “Green Army” (don’t the regular army wear green?) take the government, and declare Andrew Bolt, Wise,Exulted, Governor General (we are monarchists doncha know)….. I give up- enjoy your Lamb
Um, HULLO people!? Today is AUSTRALIA Day not “Some Pissy Little Tiny Fringe Group of Tedious Malcontents Day”. I’d say it was very wise of Google not to have gone ahead with such a spectacularly offensive stunt.
We seriously need to investigate just exactly what cancer is amok in our schools that an 11 year old girl has been brainwashed to produce such a putrid expression of AUSTRALIA Day.
There heeeere………
Nice! All this thread needs now is for someone to say…
I believe global warming is real and Andrew Bolt is a horrible person.
And now First Dog can take some of weight off Possum’s shoulders.
Mixing Ks and hard Cs in a classical-style name. Now that is spectacularly offensive…
So when it’s Independence Day here in the US, and Google does a similar thing with their logo, do you guys see the updated Google logo in Australia?
I had to append the url with .au to see the graphic on Google’s classic home page. I was under the impression Google used those images so all users saw them. Cultural diversity, etc.
Skepticus
“Some Pissy Little Tiny Fringe Group of Tedious Malcontents Day” – sounds just like you; your birthday perhaps?
The Crikey Trolls rotating roster turns again. It is now Skepticus Aurtartikus’ turn to talk horseshit.
Besides, the Aboriginal flag is an official flag of Australia and as such is Australian.
Congratulations First Dog !! You’ve got a cage match. I bet you’re itching to moderate some bastard already.
To make it official here’s a graph.
Percentage of minds changed on blogs.
%
100
50
0 __________________________________
Mmm, I think a correction to the title on the front page of crikey.com.au is in order, or rather, a follow up.
Looks like Google did the right thing.
At the risk of accusations of wing…ery, a brief anecdote. Drove a forest climate billboard to Canberra last November. Aboriginal Embasssy custodian and local legend Winiata Puru attended our rally outside the National Association of Forest Industries conference at the historic Hyatt hotel.
Sooo, Wini brings a big Aboriginal flag to include in the display. Bravo. No one is going to challenge his moral rights to carry the flag, probably has legal copyright permission anyway. But here’s the thing – I also had a big Aboriginal flag in my kit (an original from the Gundjemi Jabiluka days, former owner U protester Dave (rest in peace) who died of bowel cancer a few years back, and I rescued the flag from a dumpster). But I didn’t dare display it without actual Indigenous authorisation. Which did eventuate anyway.
Winiata participated in a critical forest blockade on the NSW south coast in 1994 at Croobyar resulting in 3 x 1km areas exclusion zone for 3 threatened species of owl – Sooty, Barking, and Masked species. He also has an excellent singing voice and about the fittest 55 year old around.
Oh and Mr First Dog, I posted on Pengo. It’s your thing for sure – see wikipedia too.
My understanding is that Google were not refused use of the image, they were merely asked to pay for it, given they are a large money-making organisation.
The copyright owner is not a fascist; he gives the image freely to non-profit organisations, charities and those involved with indigenous health, welfare and politics. It is only from profit-making organisations that he invokes his copyright privileges.
I think Google should have paid him instead of being tight-arses; it’s not like they can’t afford it.