Popular Slovakian Search Engine Accused of Piracy
February 17th, 2009
By Katarina Galdunova, Search Team Slovakia
There’s an online battle about to take place in Slovakia that could set a new precedent in Slovakia’s online world.
Internet search engine Zoznam.sk lost its top position on Slovak internet market in late 2008, replaced by the search engine Azet.sk.
The site is now being accused of internet piracy.
The reason? When a Slovakian internet user accidentally types in a non-existing or currently unavailable website, they are redirected to the website www.chyba.sk (“chyba” means “mistake” in Slovakian).
Chyba.sk and Zoznam.sk are both owned by the same company, T-Com.
The Breaking Point
It was the site www.automoto.sk that brought problems to a head. This site is owned by Azet.sk, but is currently unavailable. As it stands, users who type in this site are redirected to a site advertising Zoznam.sk.
Interestingly, although this practice is illegal in many countries, in Slovakia, it’s only considered unethical.
The owner of Azet.sk is looking at legal action to stop this piracy. However, T-Com has pointed out that problem is only an issue on certain DNS servers.
http://medialne.etrend.sk/internet/clanok.php?clanok=6456
http://www.inet.sk/clanok/6874/t-com-si-pri-svojich-projektoch-umelo-zvysuje-navstevnost-doplnene
