If you tried to visit Wikipedia or Reddit on January 18th, you may have been surprised to find the sites blacked out. Additionally, you may have noticed Google with a broad black censor across its logo. These were acts of protest against the unconstitutional SOPA & PIPA bills.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its senate-based counterpart Protect IP Act (PIPA) were two bills under deliberation on Capitol Hill. The alleged goal of these bills was to prevent the theft of intellectual property (music, movies, TV shows, and other content) from unofficial websites.
However, these bills would usher in several consequences including a breakdown of Internet security and privacy, as well as government censorship. If SOPA and PIPA had gone into effect, it would allow corporations to shut down competitor websites by simply writing a letter. This violates both our first amendment rights to free speech and is on the verge of infringing many anti-trust practices.
Before the protest, SOPA and PIPA had strong support in both the house and senate, and all across the entertainment industry. It was expected these bills would pass without even the slightest hiccup. But in one week, SOPA and PIPA lost a vast majority of it’s support, all because of Internet Marketing.
How was the SOPA/PIPA protest so effective? The campaign was largely spearheaded by Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist, and a few other Internet giants, who didn’t just explain why we should oppose SOPA, but they asked us to do something about it. Craigslist posted a large banner ad that lead to a fact page. On this fact page there was a link to OpenCongress.org which provided you with a pre-written letter that could be sent with just a simple click of the mouse to your district’s representatives and senators to oppose the bill.
Millions of people got on board with this campaign. Eighteen senators withdrew support for PIPA and the house decided to table SOPA for now. This serves as an inspirational example to us Internet marketers, to help us reach our target audience and get our message out. By using a strong call-to-action within our marketing materials and making it as easy as possible for recipients to perform those actions, you can have an effective campaign to stop a bill in congress, or just promote your business.
Posts Tagged ‘Search Engine News’
How SEO Stopped SOPA & PIPA
Monday, January 23rd, 2012Google Sets Gmail in Motion – Did You Fall for This #AprilFools Trick?
Friday, April 1st, 2011I wondered what Google had up its sleeve this year for April Fool’s. The rest of our team did too.
Did you notice the link below the Google search box today? “New Gmail Motion: Turn your email into a true body of work.”
Really?
The Search Circus team all use Google Apps including Gmail, so of course we were intrigued. We even watched the video – it sounds so real, no one was laughing, well, except us (and hopefully you too).
Watch it here!
Search Engine News: Google to Launch its Own Coupon Service to Compete with Groupon, Good or Bad Idea?
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
Google is planning on launching a new service that competes with Groupon. Photo courtesy of TheRealTimer.com.
According to Mashable, after attempting to buy out Groupon with a $6-billion offer and failing, Google has now decided to launch its own competing service. Google just announced that the company will be creating their own brand of online coupons for local deals called Google Offers.
The service will send subscribers a daily email with deals in their neighborhood with a time limit on when they can use the coupon. Then like just like Groupon, after enough people sign up, the deal is triggered and users get a $10 for $20 deal.
Google Offers also includes sharing options through Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Google Buzz and email. According to the article, Google has been trying to attract businesses to participate in Offers and even has a writing team ready to create the write-up for the different offers.
To read the full search engine news story, visit Mashable.com.
