Perhaps you have wondered why Google’s homepage is featuring a huge census bar today. The answer is Google is protesting the congressional bill, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Websites such as Craigslist, Wikipedia and Firefox have “gone dark” for the day to protest SOPA.
So what’s the big deal and why should you care?
Opponents of SOPA and the related bill, Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), say the bills would impose heavy regulatory costs, harm innovation, and give the government too much power to shut down websites accused of copyright violations even if they are later found to be innocent of the charges.
“The entire approach is philosophically wrongheaded,” Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said Tuesday evening in an interview with The Washington Post before the protest began.
Lindstrom Technology is certainly against pirated information, but we don’t feel like SOPA or PIPA are the answer. Apparently, it appears a lot of others don’t think so either. Today Google asked its users to sign a petition protesting both pieces of legislation and millions have responded. A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company’s anti-SOPA petition today.
If you would like to learn more about the bills and the movement against them read more on this site.
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/