Feds Seek Google Records in Porn Probe

AP Via Yahoo ^ | 2006-01-19

[flashbunny]

The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department said in papers filed Wednesday in federal court in San Jose.

Privacy advocates have been increasingly scrutinizing Google's practices as the company expands its offerings to include e-mail, driving directions, photo-sharing, instant messaging and Web journals.

Although Google pledges to protect personal information, the company's privacy policy says it complies with legal and government requests. Google also has no stated guidelines on how long it keeps data, leading critics to warn that retention is potentially forever given cheap storage costs.

The government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches as part of an effort to revive an Internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online, and it would have punished violators with fines up to $50,000 or jail time. The high court ruled that technology such as filtering software may better protect children.

The matter is now before a federal court in Pennsylvania, and the government wants the Google data to help argue that the law is more effective than software in protecting children from porn.

The Mountain View-based company told The San Jose Mercury News that it opposes releasing the information because it would violate the privacy rights of its users and would reveal company trade secrets.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's efforts "vigorously."

"Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching," Wong said.

[steve-b]

When you're at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.

Now, once you've gotten around to actually reading the article and discovered that "kiddie porn" is not involved, you can come back and apologize for spamming the thread with nonsense.

[steve-b]

Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online all complied with a government request for data on consumers' Web searches, a Justice Department official said Thursday.

Three for the FReeper Boycott List.

[steve-b]

IF the government wants to shut down Kiddie Porn

Did anybody actually RTFA?

[af_vet_rr]

And the Justice Department has chosen to seek a subpoena.

The Justice Department and GAO has compiled data in the past without a subpoena - somewhere in the 300s I discussed an article with specific reports by the government in regards to the search engines and adult content. Basically it consisted of government officials sitting down at computers, typing in "www.google.com" and "www.yahoo.com" and "www.msn.com" and then entering searches on various terms that children might use on the internet, and measuring what the responses were.

This on the other hand, when you read the article, two things jump out - #1 - they want "all" searches, and #2, the data they ask for does not show in any way the age of those people who entered those searches.

You cannot measure how many children actually accessed such content simply by looking at such vague data as a list of search terms.

I can give you the following five search terms and you would have no way of knowing the age of those who were searching on them:

Hillary Duff Concert
Columbus America
Pokemon
Frisbee Golf
Space Station

Do those search terms tell you anything? No, they don't, because those could all be searches used by kids looking for information on a history report or their favorite singer, or they could be used by parents helping kids, or by parents looking for gifts for their kids, or by adults in general.

That's basically what the government is asking for.

[steve-b]

I'll make it easy so even a SIMPLETON can understand it.

Evidently not, given that it continues to elude Mojave.

[af_vet_rr]

Right. The only way to shut Kiddie Porn down is to shut down the website. The only logical way to find the website seems to me is to get off their lazy minds and do random site surfing.

And guess what - law enforcement already does that, from the federal level down to the city level, they are going after the illegal stuff. Not two weeks goes by that I don't read about somebody getting caught in the newspaper.

I don't think the motive is what they would want all to believe either. This is simply posturing for setting precedent to end privacy in all aspects of a persons life in the name of whatever cause sells at the time.

And that's where it gets really scary, because something a Republican may not have a problem with (certain things protected by the 2nd Amendment for instance), a Democrat may, and if you open up pandora's box, even if it's under a Republican administration, at some point the Democrats will get power, and they will run with this, and we will be screwed.

[steve-b]

This on the other hand, when you read the article, two things jump out - #1 - they want "all" searches, and #2, the data they ask for does not show in any way the age of those people who entered those searches.

That's what makes it blindingly obvious that this is a data-mining fishing expedition.

(The only other rational explanation I can think of is that somebody in the government has lined up a fat job with MSN, AOL, Yahoo, or whoever in exchange for stealing Google's trade secrets under color of law).

[The Red Zone]

naw let him keep digging. maybe he'll emerge in China.

[steve-b]

naw let him keep digging. maybe he'll emerge in China

Well, he'd certainly be more sympatico with the Internet access policies there....

[The Red Zone]

Well they could marry the data with other data about "what children search for" ...

Waitaminnit. I thought "what children search for" is the whole idea. It's circular reasoning. This court ought to get literally inundated with FOTC briefs from those who are technically literate.

[DainBramage]

[af_vet_rr]

(The only other rational explanation I can think of is that somebody in the government has lined up a fat job with MSN, AOL, Yahoo, or whoever in exchange for stealing Google's trade secrets under color of law).

I personally like the theory that some contractor lobbyied the government to do this and they are going to get some fat-cat contract to sift through the data and compile some useless information. More pork spending.

[The Red Zone]

PSSSSSSSST

[The Red Zone]

How did they manage to sell the court on this subpoena anyhow? Something stinx.

[Lazamataz]

So, Republicans out there - how's that "limited government" thingie you've been promising us for decades coming along, hmmmmmmmmm?

We have Republicrats in office.

And every time we threaten not to bother to vote, the Neocons try to scare us with Demicans.

It ain't working no mo'.