| Google Groups | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | |
| Initial release | February 12, 2001; 25 years ago (2001-02-12) |
| Type | Newsgroups,electronic mailing lists |
| Website | groups |
Google Groups is a service fromGoogle that providesdiscussion groups for people sharing common interests. Until February 2024, the Groups service also provided a gateway toUsenet newsgroups, both reading and posting to them,[1] via a shareduser interface. In addition to accessing Google Groups, registered users can also set upmailing list archives for e-mail lists that are hosted elsewhere.[2]
Google Groups became operational in February 2001, following Google's acquisition of Deja'sUsenet archive. Deja News had been operational since March 1995.
Google Groups allows any user to freely conduct and accessthreaded discussions, via either a web interface or e-mail. There are at least two kinds of discussion groups: forums specific to Google Groups (like mailing lists)[3] and Usenet groups, accessible byNNTP, for which Google Groups acts as gateway and unofficial archive. The Google Groups archive of Usenet newsgroup postings dates back to 1981.[4]
Google Groups no longer supports posting or viewing new Usenet content since February 22, 2024. Existing archives remain available.[5][6]
TheDeja News Research Service was an archive of messages posted toUsenet discussion groups, started in March 1995[7] bySteve Madere inAustin, Texas. Itssearch engine capabilities won the service acclaim, generated controversy, and significantly changed the perceived nature of online discussion. This archive was acquired by Google in 2001.[8]
While archives of Usenet discussions had been kept for as long as the medium existed, Deja News offered a novel combination of features. It was available to the public, provided a simple World Wide Web user interface, allowed searches across all archivednewsgroups, returned immediate results, and retained messages indefinitely. The search facilities transformed Usenet from a loosely organized and ephemeral communication tool into a valued information repository. The archive's relative permanence, combined with the ability to search messages by author, raised concerns about privacy and confirmed often-repeated past admonishments that posters should be cautious in discussing themselves and others.[9]
While Madere was initially reluctant to remove archived material, protests from users and legal pressure led to the introduction of "nuking", a method for posters to permanently remove their own messages from search results. It already supported the use of an "X-No-Archive" message header, which if present would cause an article to be omitted from the archive. This did not prevent others from quoting the material in a later message and causing it to be stored. Copyright holders were also allowed to have material removed from the archive. According to Humphrey Marr of Deja News, copyright actions most frequently came from theChurch of Scientology.[10]
The capability to "nuke" postings was kept open for many years but later removed without explanation under Google's tenure. Google also mistakenly restored previously "nuked" messages at one point, angering many users.[11] "Nukes" that were in effect at the time when Google removed the possibility are still honored, however. Since May 2014, European users can request to have search results for their name from Google Groups, including their Usenet archive, delinked under theright to be forgotten law. As of 2015, Google Groups was one of the ten most delinked sites.[12] If Google does not grant a delinking, Europeans can appeal to their local data protection agencies.[13]
The service was eventually expanded beyond search. "My Deja News" offered the ability to read Usenet in the traditional chronological, per-group manner, and to post new messages to the network. Deja Communities were privateInternet forums offered primarily to businesses. In 1999 the site (now known as Deja.com) made its primary feature a shopping comparison service.[14] During this transition, which involved relocation of the servers, many older messages in the Usenet archive became unavailable. By late 2000 the company, in financial distress, sold the shopping service toeBay, who incorporated the technology into theirhalf.com services.
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(February 2025) |
By 2001, the Deja search service was shut down. In February 2001, Google acquired Deja News and its archive, and transitioned its assets to groups.google.com.[15] Users were then able to access these Usenet newsgroups through the new Google Groups interface.
By the end of 2001, the archive had been supplemented with other archived messages dating back to May 11, 1981.[16][17][18] These early posts from 1981 to 1991 were donated to Google by theUniversity of Western Ontario, based on archives byHenry Spencer from theUniversity of Toronto.[19] A short while later,[when?] Google released a new version that allowed users to create their own non-Usenet groups.
WhenAOL discontinued access to Usenet around 2005, it recommended Google Groups instead.[20]
In 2008, Google broke the Groups search functionality and left it nonfunctional for about a year, until aWired article spurred the company to fix the problems.[21][22]
On February 13, 2015, aVice Media story reported that the ability to perform advanced searches across all groups had again become nonfunctional, and to date, Google has neither fixed nor acknowledged the problem. The researcher interviewed stated, "Advanced searches within specific groups appear to be working, but that's hardly useful for any form of research—be it casual or academic."[23]
Vice andWired contributors have criticized Google for its unannounced discontinuation of the Google Groups Advanced Search page. The advanced search page allowed users to perform advanced searches across all groups. Without this page, it became difficult to find specific postings from among a multi-decade archive of posts across multiple newsgroups.[21][22][23]
Google Groups was blocked in Turkey on April 10, 2008, by a court order.[24] According toThe Guardian, the court banned Google Groups following a libel complaint byAdnan Oktar against the service. Google Groups was the first of several websites to be blocked by the Turkish government in rapid succession solely for including material that allegedly offended Islam.[25] The ban was removed a month later on May 15, 2008.[26]
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