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Feds after Google data

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Gundampilotspaz Post Whore

Gundampilotspaz

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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13657303.htm

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search and advertising giant opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

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

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

The case worries privacy advocates, given the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users.

``This is exactly the kind of case that privacy advocates have long feared,'' said Ray Everett-Church, a South Bay privacy consultant. ``The idea that these massive databases are being thrown open to anyone with a court document is the worst-case scenario. If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives.''

Everett-Church, who has consulted with Internet companies facing subpoenas, said Google could argue that releasing the information causes undue harm to its users' privacy.

``The government can't even claim that it's for national security,'' Everett-Church said. ``They're just using it to get the search engines to do their research for them in a way that compromises the civil liberties of other people.''

The government argues that it needs the information as it prepares to once again defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act in a federal court in Pennsylvania. The law was struck down in 2004 because it was too broad and could prevent adults from accessing legal porn sites.

However, the Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.

As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn. To back that claim, the government has subpoenaed search engines to develop a factual record of how often Web users encounter online porn and how Web searches turn up material they say is ``harmful to minors.''

The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google.

``The production of those materials would be of significant assistance to the government's preparation of its defense of the constitutionality of this important statute,'' government lawyers wrote, noting that Google is the largest search engine.

Google has the largest share of U.S. Web searches with 46 percent, according to November 2005 figures from Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo is second with 23 percent, and MSN third with 11 percent.

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Ceraziefish Post Whore

Ceraziefish

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No one accidentily goes to a porn site. I don't care what you say.

Kids aren't idiots. I knew that porn was readily available on the internet as soon as I started using the internet regularly around the age of 12.

And porn sites are easy to tell apart from other sites on a google search.

Therefore, when a kid uses google to find porn, it's not google's fault. Has anyone in the government ever even used the internet?

Although it's probably a strike back at the Illumanati, which has obviously been giving google cool shit lateley.

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darkon Post Whore

darkon

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This is pathetic and makes me ashamed to call myself an American. How people can approve of these actions is just sad. Either the Bush Administration are fools and don't realize you can get porn anywhere or they have another plan, and I think it has something to do with internet takeover.

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Venom112 Hax

Venom112

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shutdown google?

Yes, highly unlikely, considering the number of users it has and its ever growing shares (I guess they won't hit 600 dollars this year like some claimed, after problems like this).

No one accidentily goes to a porn site. I don't care what you say.

Are you kidding? They are around for everything, and many links will trick you. Chip N Dale's MMORPG indeed! Since when are various naked women performing sexual acts on ea-wait... This isn't Chip N Dale's MMORPG! Oh well, better not fight fate.

Kids aren't idiots. I knew that porn was readily available on the internet as soon as I started using the internet regularly around the age of 12.

Chuck Klosterman made humorous theory that that is what gave the internet such a boost to begin with!

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James_xeno Nugs

James_xeno

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They are watching! :unsure:

Get ready because if ICP goes through, if the feds win. Everyone will have to show that they are over 18 (i.e. real ID) before they could view sites with adult "material considered harmful to minors." Now I don't really have a problem with that in and of itself but because it'll be law, sites might have to list everyone that views their site. And if you think this google thing is bad then just wait until they come asking for names!

Oh and if you want an idea of what would be "material considered harmful to minors." Well these are some of the same people that go after and close down normal porn sites, the same people who wanted to ban loli and other anime and manga as child pornography. As well as anything that might appear to depict minors. (Even if it's fake anime/CG/real person over 18 and tells you.) So it's not hard to guess about what they would go after.

It'll be like our friends to the north.

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R.T. Nugs

R.T.

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I caught a bit on pbs last night where a search engine expert was interviewed. He said that this kind of request pretty much shows that the administration has no real clue about what they are looking for. The sheer magnitude of search queries that are accumulated in a week...and also that they weren't asking for (I can't remember what the term was) the automatic computer generated queries to be excluded from the info.

it will be interesting to see where this goes.

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James_xeno Nugs

James_xeno

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I caught a bit on pbs last night where a search engine expert was interviewed. He said that this kind of request pretty much shows that the administration has no real clue about what they are looking for. The sheer magnitude of search queries that are accumulated in a week...and also that they weren't asking for (I can't remember what the term was) the automatic computer generated queries to be excluded from the info.

it will be interesting to see where this goes.

Hahahahahaha.... 10,000,000 years later they get the info they need! :laugh:

What kind of people do they have working for them? I could have told them why they shouldn't do that..

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