Scientology Uses DMCA to Delist Critic's Website

touretzky writes: "Scientology has used a DMCA threat to force removal of a large number of pages from xenu.net from the Google search engine. Some of the pages Scientology is objecting to contain no material owned by the cult; other pages are clearly covered under "fair use". Scientology's ongoing abuse of Google is documented here. Of course, the Norwegian owner of xenu.net could write a counternotification letter, but that would require him to agree to the jurisdiction of a US court in a district of Scientology's choosing." The posting by Heldal-Lund agrees with what we can observe at Google - the pages listed in the posting aren't in Google's database, though many others are. Update: 03/21 14:16 GMT by M : Paul Wouters of xtdnet.nl (which hosts xenu.net) submits this page documenting Scientology's attacks against the ISP for continuing to host xenu.net.

Re:What's with scientology?

It's not really all that surprising. They have a long history of threatening anybody who critises them. They drove one critic out of America [slashdot.org], sued the creator of this site [lermanet.com], to name two of the more well known actions.

They have no choice. Their creater, L Ron Hubbard, said that they were to never defend, always attack. They can't help themselves. I run a small web site, with some critical information on it, and I've had legal threats.

Re:What's with scientology?

In Canada, they've lost all the way to the Supreme Court [scc-csc.gc.ca] - One case is Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, 1995. It was a libel case, and the details will look pretty familiar. Holysmoke [holysmoke.org]has an extract [holysmoke.org] and this [umontreal.ca] is the full thing. Umontreal's archive is linked from the official Supreme Court of Canada page.

Great quote: "Every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology." - from the Court itself.

I know that there have been many other rulings in Canada against Scientology, but only this one is easily available on-line.

Henry Troup - [e-mail]

Re:What's with scientology?

I worked for a bookstore once, and they called us to ask if we'd be interested in carrying thier books. We told them no. They weoman on the line then got very aggressive and argumentative, insisting to know why we wouldn't carry them (hatred of stupid cult + no money), wanting our names and addresses (home address, not just the store one) and lots of other ridiculous stuff before we hung up on her. Was kinda scary, really.

They make enemies because they need enemies

Are they convinced the way to expand their membership is to make enemies with... everyone?

Yes, in a way that is a good summary of their world view from _out_ perspective. They, of course, think that it's the other way round...

Scientology is, in a way, similar to a doomsday cult, although they don't believe in a soon-to-come end of the world. They believe that humanity is on a path to immediate self-destruction and that Scientology is the only way to "save" and "free" the world. They believe that they are superiour beings (members claim to have gained superhuman powers by their Sc.-training). We, the non-members, are just stupid "wogs", who can be cheated, lied to, even killed at will. Hubbard actually promised his members the superhuman power of killing such enemies by mere thought.

They also believe to be in a constant state of siege by the outside world, surrounded by enemies trying to enslave them. The outside world is seen as hostile, non-members are a grey goo of stupids and critics are evil enemies who can be attacked with every means possible. Sc.'s favourite weapon is lawyers...

Of course, Sc. sees this as pure self-defense against the hostile outside world. However, someone who dares to say something remotely critical of the cult is instantly labeled an enemy and handled as such, making the small critic an even fiercer critic...

So, yeah, Scientology is making itself is making enemies from people who just expressed doubt. And this helps Scientology, because *having* enemies is proof of their worldview and is what keeps the cult together.

Re:They make enemies because they need enemies

They believe that humanity is on a path to immediate self-destruction ...

Using the word "believe" gives Scientology too much credit. It's like saying that McDonalds believes you deserve a break today. Their so-called beliefs are nothing more than marketing techniques.

In any case, if they wanted to foster a sense of persecution, you'd think they'd leave the pages up as evidence rather than trying to suppress them. They're behaving like any other business that faces criticism, which is further evidence that they are a business, not a religion.

Re:They make enemies because they need enemies

They believe that they are superiour beings (members claim to have gained superhuman powers by their Sc.-training). We, the non-members, are just stupid "wogs", who can be cheated, lied to, even killed at will. Hubbard actually promised his members the superhuman power of killing such enemies by mere thought.

Exactly. Want to see how L. Ron Hubbard would deal with non-CoS members? Check out Scientology's plan for extermination [xs4all.nl]. The CoS has a "tone scale", which they think everyone falls onto, and that you can predict someone's exact behavior based on where they fall on that scale. If you are a 2.0 or less on that scale, they believe you should have no civil rights at all. (Hubbard actually wrote that in one of his books, isn't that lovely?). You can read more on that scale here [xs4all.nl].

Also, you can see a copy of Scientology Related Deaths here [google.com] (thanks google cache! ha!)

Re:What's with scientology?

A great book to read on the subject and their philosophy is "A Piece of Blue Sky [cmu.edu]" by Jon Atack.

You can read it here [cmu.edu].

Re:What's with scientology?

Scientology expands it's membership via various "charities" and frontgroups who's sole purpose is to raise money for the "church" and recruit new members.

One example is Narconon [xenu.net] which is little more than a scientology front designed to seperate addicts and their families from their cash while simultaneously indoctrinating them into the Co$. There have been numerous testimonials that the last thing Narconon is interested in is seeing people get better.

And of course they also hawk their ridiculous "self help" Dianetics book in informercials and flyers (never mentioning the Co$ of course) as well as the usual "personality tests" and other sleazy means they con people into visiting their premises. They'll do anything to get vulnerable, troubled and most importantly solvent people caught up into believing their lies. They even stooped so low as to do a recruitment drive for WTC victims, under the guise of offering counselling of course.

Whatever the means, the "raw meat" (the mark) gets a few "free" intensive audits, after which their reasoning faculties are sufficiently suppressed that the Co$ can start milking them for cash by selling self-improvement courses and so on. The higher up this "bridge" they get, the more money the courses cost. The Co$ doesn't like people knowing about their courses because it deprives them of money and exposes them to ridicule.

It is actually worth reading Dianetics (don't buy it though) to see how ludicrous it all is. The author L Ron Hubbard and Co$ was a nut, a criminal, a pathological liar, a sadist, a control freak and a conman. Diananetics and his other works (e.g. A History of Man) are like an attractive lure on the end of a fishing line. Promise the reader the answer to all their problems can be found in the Co$ and then reel 'em in. It's quite tragic to think how many lives this man has ruined.

Re:lots of techies into scientology?

I agree that scientology is more present on the web than other religious communities.
Unfortunately, it is completely in sync with their overall strategy.:-(
One major leg of their operations is to get the managers of companies. Through them, they then infiltrate the rest of the company. For that, they offer "management seminars" and the like, which are not visibly scientology-seminars, if my memory of the news doesn't fault me here...
This top-down approach is, as far as I know, unique to them. No other religious grouping that I am aware of does that.
Of course, their seminars are so hideously expensive that they need financially potent customers, so it is understandable.

What I find dangerous about that presence is not that they're "here" but that they are allowed to bully people into believing that their claims hold some validity...
After all, google did remove the links, so there must be some valid claim behind it.
Of course, there isn't... but the impression is created... and impressions are mightier than fact on the web (and most other places in the world).
The fact that scientology has never filed any infringement suit should make it obvious that there is no validity in their claim.
That is not the case though...
After all, this is a possible way to look at things:
The google lawyers looked at the allegation, found it valid, acted accordingly.
And thus, it was not neccessary to file a suit.
This is the classic "I can turn my weakness into a strength" trick... and again, perception is mightier than the fact.

Re:lots of techies into scientology?

The Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (MHMR [state.tx.us]) is almost completely made up of Scientologists in the upper levels of management.

It regularly hires or promotes Scientologists into positions of management, and in most cases pays them well above normal salary for such positions.

In fact, the head of MHMR is either the first or second highest paid state employee in Texas (I forget.)

As a condition of employment at or above a certain level of management, employees are required to take one or more "ropes courses", which is promoted as a confidence/team-building class, but is in fact one of these screening/indoctrination courses operated by CoS.

This of course is illegal, and since it's being paid for by the state, it is redirecting state taxpayer money to CoS.

So Texas taxpayers have been unwittingly been funding the CoS for several years. Despite volumes of very concrete and damning evidence, the State Attorney General won't even discuss taking up a case.

I wonder how many other states or state agencies are in the same situation?

It's too bad I have to post this anonymously.

to summarise

1 scientology discovers googlewhacking 2 scientology discovers dmca to scare people 3 PROFIT!!!

Censored image

xenu.net is now posting a "censored by google" image on their front page. It can be seen here [xenu.net]

Re:religion?

There's a big difference between failing to acknowledge criticism, as the Catholic Church has done, and actively attacking critics, as the $cientologists are doing.

I don't recall the Vatican ever having contacted Google to have anti-catholic pages pulled off the search engine. Also, I think the Catholic Church was somewhat in a state of denial about the pedophilia thing. The Scientologists actually do believe (or want their converts to believe) much of the stuff at xenu.net; they are just trying to make sure it doesn't get exposed to anyone they haven't "properly prepared" (read: brainwashed).

Re:religion?

this just smacks more and more of the rhetoric of the catholic church 'covering up' their little mishaps (child abuse, detachment from the holocaust, etc) as they have in the past.

That was deeply offensive. The general world outlook is the big difference - no-one is perfect, being Catholic doesn't change that, and they just had trouble accepting something that some members have done. Their philosophy remains that of Christ, which is about as far from Scientology as one can possibly get. The rest of your comment was dead on, though! :-)

Rotten covered this

Rotten [rotten.com] covered this, touching on the Open Directory aspect a bit. Check it out here [dailyrotten.com].

MPAA vs Google

So now that someone is bringing google to court saying that their caching of pages violates the DMCA how long before the MPAA goes after google about all the links to the DeCSS code?

DMCA brings back rule of might

The DMCA is a law that circumvents the justice system and allow rights holders to intimidate at a whim. All they need is a moderately clever lawyer in their pocket to draft a nasty letter and free speech gets thrown out the window.

Thankfully, we don't have a DMCA equivalent (yet) in Canada, and American law doesn't hold sway outside the borders of the land-of-the-not-so-free. I wonder if this recent Scientology idiocy is in force for Google.ca [google.ca]?

Unfortunately, for those of you thinking it may be time to move to Canada, our Justice Department is tabling bills that will make the DMCA look fair. The Canadian Government is using Australia as a role-model rather than the European community or even the US. Both sets of legal code are too lax, according to Canadian law makers. Be afraid, be VERY afraid.

Re:DMCA brings back rule of might

Yes and no. Before the DMCA, the process would be more like "Get a laywer to file a lawsuit against Google." Now it's "Get a lawyer to draft a letter." IIRC, the letter Google received would have contained a sworn statement (under penalty of purjury) that each of the urls listed contained material copyrighted by the CoS. Technically (probably not in reality, but I can dream, can't I?) xenu.net can file their counterstatement affirming they're not in violation, and if they win go on to file a countersuit for felony purjury charge. I, personally, would love to see someone end up with jailtime over this sort of thing.

Effectiveness?

As I understand it, Google is only required to remove refrences to certain pages on the site, not the whole site entirely?

How effective is this going to be? Even if the pages to "Operation Clambake" or whatever are removed from Google, xenu.net is probably still going to show up (depending on the search criteria used, I suppose). Once you're at the xenu.net home page, it's a trivial matter to find the other pages in question that Scientology has a problem with.

www.google.com's new banner?

(C)2002 Google - Searching 2,073,418,204 web pages and skipping 4,475,243,576 pages under the DMCA

Re:www.google.com's new banner?

Look at the situation, in my opinion:

Today people don't much care about Scientology filing a lawsuit against this person or that person. "Who are those people and why do I care if they're fighting an organization I don't even understand? Scientology never hurt me."

I bet people would take notice if Google was sued. Three things could happen:

1. Google gains even more users.
2. Opponents mirror the offending material more now than ever, making it even easier to find in Google.
3. Scientology's public image could be ruined if it endangered Google's future.

People could begin asking, "What is Scientology and why did they make my favorite search engine go away? I can't find anything anymore."

Under the current situation I only see:

1. Google losing respect as an authoritative search engine, bowing to legal pressure at the expense of its core mission (helping people find web pages).

If Google would guarantee that Scientology appears as the first link in Google results when users search for the world "Scientology," I don't see why Scientology would care about anti-Scientology material. Only people interested in that material will spend the time to look at it. People read the first link, and if it sounds right, they click it. End of story.

In all my observations of user behavior, I've never seen a user read all of the search results and thoughtfully consider them before selecting which link is appropriate. They click the first link that looks like it might remotely be correct.

Re:www.google.com's new banner?

Yah, well, the problem with having Scientology sue you is that the organization has no scruples at all.

If Google didn't toe Scientology's line, the following would happen:
* pickets outside the founders' homes, claiming that they're pedophiles and hate-mongers.
* their pets would be drowned.
* their family and friends would be harassed.
* their telephone, cableco, banking, and other accounts would be subjected to social engineering attempts to shut 'em down.
* the Google HQ would be picketed.
* the US Government would be petitioned to intervene against Google.
* there would be endless court time, made as expensive as possible by Scientology.

There are all tactics they've used in the past against their "enemies," both in court and outside of court, against critics and ex-Scientologists who start revealing the truth about hte organization.

Scientology is an 800-lb gorilla with bad intentions.

I hate scientology.

A friend's sister converted to Scientology and she promptly dated a 50 year old bloke - she was 22 at the time. Even ignoring the age difference, the sudden and radical change in her whole personality (from friendly and a good laugh to extremely insular and compulsive neurotic) scared me *a lot*.

She left the cult (whoops, I meant "religion") two years ago and with the support of her family is on the road to recovery. I don't know if her family persuaded her to leave or they did a rescue mission for her.

I don't know what she thinks of Scientology nowadays.

Definitely very creepy fuckers. Best avoided, or failing that, best viewed in a strong critical light. Are they working for your spiritual development, or are they fleecing you for all your money?

Scientologists team up with RAMBUS, Inc.

In an unprecedented move, RAMBUS, Inc. announced a planned merger with the Scientologist movement. "We invest a lot of money in protecting our ideas, and noticed a similar trend with the Scientologists. It only made sense to pool our resources." noted Tom Quinn, VP of Marketing at RAMBUS. As part of the merger, RAMBUS will drop its chip-making division, leaving them only to focus on their legal persuits. The Scientologists will continue their legal efforts to use the DMCA to erase all traces of their existance. Analysts were uncertain what to think of the merger. "What are they going to do? Make holy chips?" was one response heard.

xenu.net usenet thread about being de-listed

Andreas, xenu.net's owner announced all this on the usenet group alt.religion.scientology. You can read his posting here [google.com] on google (hah!), where he talks about it, and what URLs were de-listed.

Re:xenu.net usenet thread about being de-listed

Andreas, xenu.net's owner announced all this on the usenet group alt.religion.scientology.

Check out that thread [google.com]... it tells about them scheming to get the story onto Slashdot.

> I also posted the story to Slashdot. They love this kind of
> stuff. Keep your eyes on Slashdot and lets see if they print
> it. If they do, prepare to get hit. I referenced your site
> twice, and scientology's site not at all. ;-)

Good luck, I've submitted the story three times already, Two
out of three has been rejected so far. The last one includes
the bit about DMCA though,that should set things off, I hope.. :)

Help Spread the Links (Co$ doesnt want you to see)

I just got a reply from Google (they claim it was difficult to find my contact info. Right...) where they inform me that Operation Clambake is removed from Google because of a DMCA notification from the cult. The complaint mentions a ridiculous list of addresses which successfully removes the whole site from their engine. To get OC back we have to counter the complaint. Since the complaint is making claims of ownership of pages clearly not owned by the cult, this could hurt the cult only. But this means OC will have to follow this up with a US lawyer, which might be difficult and expensive. Here's what I received from Google today: [START QUOTE FROM GOOGLE REPLY] We removed certain specific URLs in response to a notification submitted by the Religious Technology Center and Bridge Publications under section 512(c)(3) of the the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Had we not removed these URLs, we would be subject to a claim for copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URLs included in that notification are attached to this email. Pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the DMCA, you have the ability to submit a counter notification, in which event we can reinstate the material. As stated in section 512(g) (3), the contents of this notification must include the following: (A) A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber. (B) Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled. (C) A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled. (D) The subscriber's name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriber's address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person. Here are the urls mentioned in the complaint that I believe are related to your site:

• www.xenu.net/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/index.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop1.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop2.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop3.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop4.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop5.h tml [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/prop6.h tm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/clan-images.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/photoalbum/lisas_case_sup.htm l [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/events/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/events/lisa_mcpherson/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/enemy/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/enemy/da.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/enemy/targets.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/archive/grd_chrt.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/disk/OTIII/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/hubbandcw/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/greece/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-630511.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-630714.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-610619.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/enemy_names/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/enemy_names/dead_agenting.htm l [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/enemy_names/targets.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/tonelevel.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/grade_chart.html [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/ [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuleaf.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenusw.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenunl.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenufr.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenufi.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuno.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuge.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuaf.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuru-k.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/leaflet/xenuheb.htm [xenu.net]
• www.xenu.net/archive/so/ [xenu.net]
• www.clambake.org/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/ind ex.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p1.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p2.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p3.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p4.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p5.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/propaganda/pro p6.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/clan-images.ht ml [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/photoalbum/lisas_case_sup .html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/events/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/events/lisa_mcpherson/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/enemy/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/enemy/da.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/enemy/targets.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/archive/grd_chrt.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/disk/OTIII/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/hubbandcw/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/greece/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-630511.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-630714.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/HCOB/FU-HCOB-610619.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/enemy_names/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/enemy_names/dead_agenting .html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/enemy_names/targets.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/tonelevel.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/grade_chart.html [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/ [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuleaf.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenusw.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenunl.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenufr.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenufi.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuno.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuge.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuaf.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuru-k.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/leaflet/xenuheb.htm [clambake.org]
• www.clambake.org/archive/so/ [clambake.org]

Google's removal policy

Check out Google's removal policy [google.com] for a little more perspective (bold text is their doing, not mine):

"Google views the quality of its search results as an extremely important priority. Therefore, Google stops indexing the pages on your site only at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for those pages. This policy is necessary to ensure that pages are not inappropriately removed from our index.

"Since Google is committed to providing thorough and unbiased search results for our users, we cannot participate in the practice of censoring information on the world wide web."

Wow... I'm very surprised. Google is usually very good at practicing what they preach.

Re:Google's removal policy

On further reading of Google's