Image via WikipediaGoogle's recently acclaimed chairman, Eric Schmidt, gave a warning to the government regarding their intentions of blocking access to targeted illegal filesharing websites, he cautioned them that this action will have "disastrous precedent" for freedom of speech. He was addressing the media after his keynote speech at Google's Big Tent conference, which took place on Wednesday in London. Schmidt mentioned that Google well definitely attempt to restrict access to the Pirate Bay, and other "cyberlocker" websites, which are considered to be distributing illegal downloading. It is already a part of governments plan to tackle this online piracy with controversial methods like Digital Economy Act.
Schmidt stated that "If there is a law that requires DNSs [domain name systems, the protocol that allows users to connect to websites], to do X and its passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it." He also added "If it's a request the answer is we wouldn't do it, if it's a discussion we wouldn't do it."
Schmidt has assumed the office of Google's executive chairman just last month, as he had remained its chief executive for almost ten years. He labeled this act of the government to be very similar to the acts of the Chinese government to be placing restrictions over various websites. He declared "I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems.” He went on saying "So, 'let's whack off the DNS'. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs' – that country would be China.”
He seemed highly concerned as he said "It doesn't seem right. I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas."
The culture minister, Jeremy Hunt was also present at the conference and stated that the plans to restrict access to these illegal filesharing websites have been scheduled. However, he confessed that it is a very "challenging" task to decide whether which website shall be restricted and which not, he said that this decision was very controversial.
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