Government Tells Google To Hand Over Records.

[Hraefn 0]

I'm all for putting a stop to terrorism, but hey, this is going overboard. This has the poetential for abuse. Privacy online may be a myth, but that's no reason for Big Brother to actively dig into our closets just so they could go on a witchhunt. It'll be different if they're doing it as part of an active criminal investigation, but they're not. They just want to snoopâthey don't even know who they're looking for! Don't the Feds have anything better to do with their time than to indulge their voyeuristic tendencies?

 

Once thing I'm wondering about is why the search records? It seems like a waste of time as this article shows. So why not the records of the websites that are listed in Google's database? Surely it would be more profitable to, say, go after the webmaster of a porn site than those people who search for porn? Or how about all those websites that teach people how to make bombs? Why target the users? All I can say is that Michael Moore will have a field day with this.

 

Okay, this next section of my post was written after some time after the previous one, and so I stand corrected on several issues. To know more, just read on.

 

Updates:

 

One of the most comprehensive articles convering this issue can be found at Search Engine Watch. The article is being regularly updated. For those to lazy to read the whole thing, here's the gist of the story:

... the requests do not involve user data at all. According to the report, they [the US gov't] wanted a list of one million web addresses. Not who went to the web pages and when, just a list of URLs picked randomly.

... this case is not about stopping child porn. It's about trying to get a law passed that would help the government shut down sites that allow children themselves to access porn.

... AOL, MSN and Yahoo all received requests from the Department Of Justice along with Google.

... Ask Jeeves did not provide data, as they were not asked.

... Justice Department confirms that AOL, Yahoo and MSN complied with gov't order.

... AOL sends a statement saying they didn't comply but apparently they did, at least partly.

Given the fact that the Fed's order apparently had nothing to do with personal data, you might be wondering, "So why didn't Google just comply in the first place?" Well, according to the same article I linked to, here are two reasons why.

 

Competitive: Why give even raw search data out that possibly might fall into the hands of competitors. Even then, the lists from each major search engine will be pretty similar, so not that much of a worry.     

 

Trust: The data, as I've written, isn't going to help the government at all in what they say it will do. Heck, if they really need that list, they could buy the data from Wordtracker. But by handing it over, the search engine loses the perception of trust with its users. They may not understand that it is not personal. They will understand the government made a wideranging request for information and that the search company didn't push back. That type of trust is worth defending in the face of an ill advised, useless government action.

Out of all the search engines involved in this fracas, Google apparently made the best choice. At least, Google currently ranks highest in the trust division. =^^=

 

-P.S.- Danzarely, porn is illegal. =^^=

[danzarely 0]

pornography is in no way illegal. the law against "hc" porn was dropped in the late 80's. now, of course, child pornography and other mentally disturbing types of porn are clearly illegal, but porn itself is not illegal. they sell it at blockbuster for goodness sakes

[Grafitti 0]

LOL if it's illegal, how come in just about any country in the world, at any newsstand, there's a whole rack devoted to the stuff. Maybe in some Middle East countries it's illegal, but heck no in the rest of the world.Privacy online, yes, is only a myth. No matter what service you're using, there's some way the government can get ahold of it. So if Google doesn't turn it over, there's other ways to get the info. So explain please, why would the government just want a million random addresses to check? How the hell is that supposed to be investigative work? Here's a thought: rather than trying to trawl through every person's data in the effort to "stop the possibility of children being able to access porn", why not just buy some company's porn blocker, and make it freeware, and make it available for download so that parents can install it on their lkids' comps if they feel the need to. And once that's done, then the government can, as you said, go after the webmaster who are encouraging the stuff.

[Hraefn 0]

This may be old hat to some, but a recent news update regarding this issue says that Google has managed to avoid surrending search requests to the U.S. goverment (related article). U.S. District Judge James Ware has ordered Google to give the Feds an inside peek of the California-based search giant—which basically means that they'll be handing over a list of the URLs of 50,000 randomly selected websites—but that Google doesn't have to comply with the earlier demand to hand over search request as well. This is certainly a big triumph for privacy advocates. =^^=

 

All in all, I think Google has come out on top of this fracas pretty well. As I stated in an earlier post, one of the major concerns Google had about the government order was that it would cause Google's users to lose trust in them, which would eventually cost them billions of dollars in missed revenue. In fact, Google used that same argument in the case. And I quote:

 

Although the Justice Department emphasized it didn't want any information that would identify anyone who made the search requests, Google and its supporters still attacked the government's demands as an unnecessary intrusion that threatened to undermine the public's trust in the Internet.

 

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google also feared a loss of traffic if Web surfers became paranoid about using its search engine, an argument that struck a chord with Ware.

 

"There is a potential burden as to Google's loss of goodwill if Google is forced to disclose search queries to the government," [Judge] Ware concluded.

It seems like Google now holds the biggest slice of the search engine pie, especially after its competitors AOL, MSN, and Yahoo caved in so easily. I mean really, after all that, which search engine would you trust? =^^=

[Mafamba Team 0]

That has shocked me.I thought that you can't hand over records

[Dark Carnie 0]

I did not know about this matter untill now, I think that the goverment has no right to do this but its a good idea, the terrorists could very well be using google and if the governement has records they can find terrorists, and could even possibly stop anyother tradgity such as 9/11 (Day before my birthday :[ ) Now googles halfBut I am also on googles side, I love google and giving the government records is like taking someones Social security # and saying it on the news, we do deserve our privacy and I say google fights untill we cant fight no moreas you can see im a 2 sider but I usually make good points for both sides~Dark Carnie~