Posted on 01/19/2006 10:36:33 AM PST by 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.
OK, whatever you say.
Perv porn purveyers and pedophile predators are.
You sound like a NAMBLA recruiter.
The law also protects children from online exposure of their personal and contact information. NAMBLA members must hate that.
Mojave:
Perv porn purveyers and pedophile predators are.
You sound like a NAMBLA recruiter.
THIS ISSUIE IS ABOUT LEGAL ADULT PORN. The government has no business SNOOPING on law-abiding citizens, capisce?
Next it'll be all those who do searches on "Rifles", "Guns", or "Second Amendment".
Are you really that OBTUSE???????
744
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Eighth, - our boy is far from obtuse. -- He wants gov prohibitions on all sorts of 'evil' objects like guns.. -- To him, prohibitions are just the democratic 'will of the majority' in action..
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