Istyosty Down–Google Next?

The proxy service istyosty has had to close due to legal threats from Associated Newspapers (aka The Daily Mail). The cease-and-desist letter has been published online.

Istyosty worked by caching webpages and providing a URL to the cached version. This means that the cached website does not get hit every single time the cached page is loaded. This deprives the target site of advertising revenue, whether that be through page ads (which can be stripped by an automated script – this is what browser extensions like Adblock do), or by pay-per-hit schemes.

Obviously, the Daily Fail found istyosty either vocal enough, or popular enough to warrant it a threat to its online business. We can take that as a good thing. The Daily Mail is one of the most popular online news sites, gaining in popularity through flamebaitery articles (case in question: Facebook gives you cancer), reams of celebrity drivel supplemented by photographs, and the sheer ignorant and offensive columns of the likes of Richard Littlejohn and Jan Moir. Their bile is what causes people to take these measures – but they don’t care too much about that.

Now, the source of some of this content has been brought into question – allegations stand from multiple sources that the Mail online uses copyrighted images without remuneration or attribution; and there is also evidence of plagiarism. From a business perspective, this all makes sense. Competing on the Internet largely translates for competing for Google search rankings. The Mail is always up there at the top of the first page – an impressive feat. It seems as if they are willing to do anything to get there, whether that be rip off content or threaten

The big question is – will the Daily Mail go after Google? Google caches web pages in the same way:

Furthermore, I can link to the Daily Mail homepage using that cached link, just like istyosty. Google is considerably stronger that istyosty (both in terms of financial and server power) – and so will cache pages at a vastly accelerated rate. Surely this is a bigger threat to them?

The Daily Mail has a history of setting the lawyers on those who disagree with it – but will Google be considered too powerful to pull the same tactic on?