Google bought the rights to archive the usenet discussion groups (when they bought Deja News) and can eliminate those archives at any time. While that might not equate ownership, it definitely equates control. Cathy Christopher Jahn wrote: > Huntersglenn <huntersglenn@cox.net> wrote in > news:fK9lj.33569$Ft5.9009@newsfe15.lga: > > >>However, to answer your question, googlegroups owns/controls >>the usenet newsgroups, > > > No, it doesn't. No one does. Interesting unfounded wild-assed > guess, though. >

Huntersglenn <huntersglenn@cox.net> wrote in news:0kalj.25446$hO4.12854@newsfe19.lga: > Google bought the rights to archive the usenet discussion > groups (when they bought Deja News) and can eliminate those > archives at any time. While that might not equate ownership, > it definitely equates control. Cathy No, they didn't. They bought an ARCHIVE, period. They did not buy any "exclusive" rights, because no one owns those rights. Anyone can start a Usenet archive anytime they like. In fact, DejaNews was not the only archive; they bought up some of their competition before going belly-up. Maintaining a complete archive is expensive, and there's not a lot of profit in it. But the archive isn't Usenet, the archive isn't crucial to Usenet, and I'll even go so far as to say that the archive is actually irrelevant to Usenet. Usenet is about COMMUNICATION, not storage. Google can only control their archives, they have absolutely no control over Usenet, or the messages retained on the tens of thousands of usenet servers around the planet. That's the entire point of Usenet; NO ONE controls it, and NO ONE can destroy it. It's not centralized, and its connections are random and infinitely redundant. Global thermonuclear war MIGHT do it if you destroy every single computer or power source on the entire planet. Nothing less can do it. -- }:-) Christopher Jahn {:-( http://soflatheatre.blogspot.com/ Horniness is a quintessential example of hope.

"Huntersglenn" <huntersglenn@cox.net> wrote in message news:0kalj.25446$hO4.12854@newsfe19.lga... > Google bought the rights to archive the usenet discussion groups (when > they bought Deja News) and can eliminate those archives at any time. > While that might not equate ownership, it definitely equates control. Google can't stop us from creating groups that they don't approve of. If I wanted to create "alt.google.groups.suck", they'd be powerless to stop it. They'd probably archive it too!

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:57:26 -0500, Huntersglenn <huntersglenn@cox.net> wrote: >Christopher Jahn wrote: > >> Huntersglenn <huntersglenn@cox.net> wrote in >> news:fK9lj.33569$Ft5.9009@newsfe15.lga: >> >> >>>However, to answer your question, googlegroups owns/controls >>>the usenet newsgroups, >> >> >> No, it doesn't. No one does. Interesting unfounded wild-assed >> guess, though. >> >Google bought the rights to archive the usenet discussion groups (when >they bought Deja News) and can eliminate those archives at any time. >While that might not equate ownership, it definitely equates control. > No it doesn't. That is no more "control" of newsgroups than possession of old newspapers by e.g. the Library of Congress or the British Library constitutes control of newspapers. Googlegroups is only one of many collections of Usenet postings, otherwise seen in the form of the data on news servers belonging to many different ISPs.