Just like everybody (with exceptions) , we also thought it was insane when Twitter announced it would be instituting a new censorship policy. There are people who want it to start and there is a web community in the major group that came out against the move from the micro blogging site. It seems no many people were aware that the search giant Google was already on its path of implementing a similar policy. In fact the search giant started it before Twitter, but was doing it much more silently. The start is with their blogger platform, with this change in policy and implementation Google will be able to censor as well as remove content based on location.
The move was first announced on January 9 this year on Google' site in response to a few questions. Localizing the domains, is kind on the same path that Twitter puts down as promotion of free expressions. More worse, as it looks like there would soon be more companies following the same localization path. Google obviously seems to be down the path of segmenting all its products and services from a geographical point of view.
Below is an excerpt from Google:
"Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law"
The good thing is that Google has been pretty open about its policies. This move by Google and Twitter seems to have come in adaptation due to the legal action that these two and a few other companies are facing in India in connection with their content on the respective sites. The changes to blogger are already live in India, New Zealand and Australia.
The changes in effect means, that if you are viewing a blog from India; instead of a .com extension you will now be redirecting to .in extension. So if you are viewing a US blog from India what you will see is the Indian domain content that may be censored according to India rules. For now, however if the user wants not to be redirected he/she may add a /ncr at the end of the blogger URL so as not to be redirected to his/her country specific version. The /ncr simply means No Country Redirection.
Please note that this feature as of this writing does not apply to the blogs that use the custom domain feature.
We think this might just be the start to a whole big chunk of localized internet. Let us know what do you think!
Keep Crunching!
The move was first announced on January 9 this year on Google' site in response to a few questions. Localizing the domains, is kind on the same path that Twitter puts down as promotion of free expressions. More worse, as it looks like there would soon be more companies following the same localization path. Google obviously seems to be down the path of segmenting all its products and services from a geographical point of view.
Below is an excerpt from Google:
"Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law"
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| Country Specific Blogger URLs |
The good thing is that Google has been pretty open about its policies. This move by Google and Twitter seems to have come in adaptation due to the legal action that these two and a few other companies are facing in India in connection with their content on the respective sites. The changes to blogger are already live in India, New Zealand and Australia.
The changes in effect means, that if you are viewing a blog from India; instead of a .com extension you will now be redirecting to .in extension. So if you are viewing a US blog from India what you will see is the Indian domain content that may be censored according to India rules. For now, however if the user wants not to be redirected he/she may add a /ncr at the end of the blogger URL so as not to be redirected to his/her country specific version. The /ncr simply means No Country Redirection.
Please note that this feature as of this writing does not apply to the blogs that use the custom domain feature.
We think this might just be the start to a whole big chunk of localized internet. Let us know what do you think!
Keep Crunching!
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