DATE:
Wednesday 04 January 2006
Not surprising really
By Nick Farrell:
THE COUNTRY which deals with troublesome journalists by shooting them, may have bitten off a little more than it could chew by taking on the mighty Google.
Belarus has a Google page here, which must be one of the first in the world to have its own advertising. The only problem is that the page is not actually run by the Google we know and love which lives in the United States.
Google's real Belarus address is http://www.google.com/intl/be/ however it seems that the outfit has been cyber squatted.
Rather than dress up the site in something more criminal, the squatters have just decided to make a fast buck out of advertising to those Belarusians who just type in the address.
According to battellemedia Google says that, despite the site having its logo, it has nothing to do with them. It is setting their legal mastiffs onto the site to shut it down.
I wouldn't fancy Google's chances. Belarus was banned from the Council of Europe because of its human rights violations. The Venice Commission has declared its constitution "illegal and does not respect minimum democratic standards and thus violates the principles of separation of powers and the rule of law".
Mind you, they could always bribe a top official to have the site shut down.
More at battellemedia.
Source:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28701
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