Court Date Set for Google Lawsuit

Jason Jardine wrote to mention a C|Net story giving the date and location for Google's court case with the government. From the article: "Google's attempt to fend off the government's request for millions of search terms will move to a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Feb. 27. U.S. District Judge James Ware on Thursday set the date for the highly anticipated hearing, which is expected to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department will prevail in its fight to force Google to help it defend an anti-pornography law this fall."

Comments

Too bad..

[JDooty1234]

... they can't just dredge up a cache of Johnny Cochran.

Re:Too bad..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does NOT MAKE SENSE! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does NOT MAKE SENSE! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major search company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does NOT MAKE SENSE! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Re:Too bad..

[Firehed]

Prosecutor: But we all know wookies are from Kashyyyk.
Defense: D'oh!

What does that do for Google's odds?

Slightly more on-topic, as long as the judge is vaguely familiar with the constitution, there shouldn't even be a case at all - Google just wins by default.

Can you say Circus?

[WebHostingGuy]

I bet there will be a media and protester circus outside the courthouse on this one. Then again, maybe CourtTV will have the hearing live. This will be interesting and will definately shape the discussion on the Justice Department and internal US spying.

Re:Can you say Circus?

[stry_cat]

This is Federal court where TV cameras are not allowed. So CourtTV will not be there. Also since the Feds are involved, protesters will be kept far way in a free speech zone. There will be little in the way of a so-called "media circus" or any dramtic action what so ever.

Interesting Point

[gasmonso]

I find it somewhat interesting how Google rightfully doesn't want to cooperate with the US government on this issue, but I also find it funny how they will appease the Chinese government when its in their best interest.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Interesting Point

[WebHostingGuy]

That's because there is no potential profit from cooperating with the US government.

1. Create Search Engine
2. Cooperate|Not Cooperate
3. Media Exposure
4. Profit!

Re:Interesting Point

[rindeee]

Indeed. Will Google's moral compass be so fixed when the Chinese government demands similar of them?

Re:Interesting Point

[MindStalker]

They arn't giving china information on its citizens (though I believe there are search engines that are??) simply complying with blocking requirements by the chinese government. Look at it the other way google currently attempts to block warez sites which the US government deems illigal, such blocking would be seen my many in china to be an parralel example.

Re:Interesting Point

[conteXXt]

It seems to be in Google's best interest to get the exposure in China.

It ALSO seems to be in their best interest to NOT GIVE exposure of their US clients' data.

No issue here as far as I can see (apart from (potentially) my grammar)

Re:Interesting Point

[Anonymous Coward]

We all don't like China's way of running the government, but what the justice department asked for is illegal in the US. What they are doing in China is not illegal, and in fact, is the only way it can work. Other countries set there own laws, and you follow them in there or else. There are many laws in the US that aren't in other countries(drinking age being one of them). What would you think about guiness having a billboard targeted at teenagers in our country?

Re:Interesting Point

[ranton]

I hate how short sided people can be when they have their mind made up about something. Cooperating with the Chinese government was not as "evil" as the Slashdot crowd would like you to believe.

Google had two options:

1) Refuse China's request, therefore reducing the average Chinese citizen's access to information on the internet greatly.

2) Comply with China's request, therefore helping the average Chinese citizen access information while only restricting their access slightly. In addition, they can have a message that notifies them that sites are being blocked for political reasons.

In my opinion, it would have been "evil" of Google to not comply with China's request. It would be the same as refusing to give food to North Korea because you do not like their government. I do not think letting millions of people starve would be the best approach to overthrowing the North Korean government. I also do not think the best way to liberate China from their oppressive regime is to isolate them even further.

--

Re:Interesting Point

[Billosaur]

In my opinion, it would have been "evil" of Google to not comply with China's request. It would be the same as refusing to give food to North Korea because you do not like their government. I do not think letting millions of people starve would be the best approach to overthrowing the North Korean government. I also do not think the best way to liberate China from their oppressive regime is to isolate them even further.

IMO, the two things do not equate, as the Chinese can live without the Internet, but the North Koreans cannot live without food (though they've done so longer than I would have thought possible without pulling down their government).

That said, I agree with the basic premise of your argument, although in Google's case, it can be said that the bottom line in this case drove their decision more than geopolitical expediency or the welfare of the masses. While not "evil", it was certainly not justifiable on moral grounds. If we believe in equality and human rights, then the Chinese people have just as much right to free expression and exchange of ideas as anyone else.

Re:Interesting Point

[FidelCatsro]

America Has freedom of speech on the books , China does not .
If goggle want's to operate in China they have little choice on the matter , The Chinese government is not famous for its leniency on such issues

Re:Interesting Point

[treehouse]

The Chinese government hasn't made similar demands. Why do you think they might? If you're looking for a "slippery slope" argument, what will Google say when the US government asks for a list of all people who make queries critical of Bush?

Re:Interesting Point

[inerte]

I guess you're saying that it's ok if I select only certain parts of your post, so people get to know you better. Better to know something than nothing at all, right?

ranton said

the best way to liberate China from their oppressive regime is to isolate them even further.

Re:Interesting Point

[Fr05t]

"What would you think about guiness having a billboard targeted at teenagers in our country?"

A black soother with Guinness foam on the end of it would be AWESOME!

Re:Interesting Point

[Speare]

2) Comply with China's request, therefore helping the average Chinese citizen access information while only restricting their access slightly. In addition, they can have a message that notifies them that sites are being blocked for political reasons.

I have heard this argument, but have not yet seen the proposed message that the Chinese user would see. If it really says, "hey, your government made us hide some useful information from you" then fine, but I really expect it will end up watered down, barely better than "the Party Seal means you're getting 85% more fresh Party goodness, guaranteed."

Re:Interesting Point

[RobM9999]

It's simple to understand.

1.Piss of Americans
2.Usage drops
3.Decrease in ad revenue
4.Not profit

If you have even taken a second to check Google China you will see there is no/little advertising.
What will it hurt to lose the the Chinese?

Re:Interesting Point

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate how short sided people can be when they have their mind made up about something. Cooperating with the Chinese government was not as "evil" as the Slashdot crowd would like you to believe.

Perhaps we should think about it the other way around: maybe the request for anonymous info isn't that heinous while agreeing to help the chinese government break their own laws and censor their citizens is.

I hate how short sided people can be when they have their mind made up about something. Cooperating with the American government was not as "evil" as the Slashdot crowd would like you to believe.

Re:Interesting Point

[KarmaMB84]

Look for comparisons between Google search and library records. It is actually quite likely that a judge will find there's no reason Google can't comply but at the same time there's no law (yet) that requires they comply.

I doubt this can be blocked by free speech or any of the other amendments.

Re:Interesting Point

[Jose]

can the above post be a mod'ed a higher please ... maybe up to 20 or something? finally someone who has a clue!
I also do not think the best way to liberate China from their oppressive regime is to isolate them even further.

From what I can see, I am sure that gov't of the PRC would have loved google to refuse to censor searches...the less access to information their citizen's have the better.

Re:Interesting Point

[controlguy]

Just a quick point -- our isolation (via embargo) of Cuba since the 60's hasn't worked at all to remove Fidel Castro, and our isolation of N. Korea hasn't worked to stem the tide of their nuclear ambitions at the expense of its own people. Each of these nations has an agenda and intends to see it through. Both governments (like China) isolate their people despite our efforts ( Cuban example), and, further, they use our isolationist tactics against us by demonizing America to justify their abusive power.

All expectations are that China will overtake the USA as the world's #1 economy in this century, regardless of Google's actions. If we isolate China, we give the rest of the world to invest in the future cash cow while we're left behind. Sure, in an ideal world, free speech, democracy, and apple pie conquer all, but this is the real world. Fact is, by not isolating China, their markets have opened and captitalism is beginning to take some root. Some believe that the emerging middle class in China will eventually demand reform, but we can only hope.

I think its also important to note that our interactions with China can hardly be classified as Brinkmanship. Remember the debates of this past summer about them pegging their currency to ours? We did nothing about it, despit tough talk from Capitol Hill.

Re:Interesting Point

[Soruk]

That's an easy one. Go to www.google.cn, do a search for "Democracy" (Hmm.. slashcode is removing the HTML entities for the Chinese characters.. the unicodes are: 6C11 4E3B 653F 6CBB, convert these into their Chinese characters and paste into google.cn) and see what you get back. Oh, and all the better if you can, or can borrow someone who can, read Chinese.

Re:Interesting Point

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so naive, according to several reports so far Google is censoring far more results than either Yahoo or MSN are and Google certainly isn't telling them that information has been censored in all cases.

Google did have two options but they were:

1) Refuse China's request and put itself outside of a market with 100 million Internet users that's only going to grow

2) Comply with China's request and cash in

Google is expanding into China - just like other companies - only because it's a huge relatively untapped market. Google isn't out to make the world a better place, it's out to make more money for itself and as a result its shareholders. If the two happen to coincide then that makes for great PR, but it certainly isn't going to shoot itself in the foot by "doing no evil", it's far easier to just redefine evil as time progresses to fit their coorporate strategy.

Re:Interesting Point

[Anonymous Coward]

short sided?

Re:Interesting Point

[JohnFluxx]

A common myth, sort of. China does have freedom of speech, sort of. They do have a constitution which protects the freedom of speech and basic liberties of its citizens. It's just that it has, at the very bottom, a single line which says something like "except where it infringes on the interests of the state." heh.

Re:Interesting Point

[centie]

1) Refuse China's request, therefore reducing the average Chinese citizen's access to information on the internet greatly.

Google is a search engine helping you find information (and displaying ads at the same time). It is NOT the internet, or information in itself. The average Chinese citizen has access to exactly the same information whether Google is there or not, the same portions of the internet are avilable (or not available as it may be) to them through Google or Yahoo or MSN.

There are atleast two other major search engines (Yahoo and MSN) operating in China, and undoubtably many more local ones. I find it difficult to believe that google is such a better service that it is going to make much difference to the information available there.

Also, the "message notifying them of sites being blocked for politcal reasons" is, I think, a small disclaimer that appears at the bottom of every page, stating that search results may not be shown in accordance with local laws.

As for the food analogy, a closer idea would probabably be refusing to sell (google isn't a charity remember, its in it for the money) food distrubtion technology to North Korea, knowing that they already have several food distrubtion system. They arn't doing this, as with most companies the case is they will do buisness with repressive regimes provided they pay correctly.

Re:Interesting Point

[inerte]

This is entirely different from Google sticking with its motto. I do think China will be the largest economy in the world, if not on this century, the next. And India close... mostly because of the volume of workforce available.

Google can enter any market they want. They can even never report (or index pages, or serve on news.google.com) journalist assassinations around the world, torture on prisons, and all that stuff.

But at least come clean. Saying "we do no evil" while doing evil is marketing fluff. Once a company run by engineers, with cool products, Google had to make decisions based on profit, but they still market themselves as the good boys around the block.

Are they better, or less evil, or do more good than MSN and Yahoo? Yeah, probably, but on the long term, it's not a good strategy. People like the "don't be evil" thing.

Once we know that Google is capable of taking decisions based on money, bending its values and promoted motto to increase the stock value, it really puts a question mark on a lot of other actions.

Back to the topic, are we *sure* now that Google didn't deliver the information requested by DoJ because they want to protect its users' privacy? Can you find economical reasons for this? I can, and one of them is exactly privacy: As a search engine, Google has to earn trust from the users, and protecting their privacy is one step into this.

But did Google really protected your privacy or did they really protected their business? The original intention is crucial, not only because of the moral ramifications of the motto, but because, what happens next? What if an advertiser comes and says that they want Google's data about you?

And is an advertiser trying to hold information about you, looking for profit, worse than Google holding information about you, and also looking for profit? When you know that Google might do anything to get money, that's a scary thing.

Things are not that bad of course. Google is still the nicest player around. But they showed us that they will bend what's right and wrong when money is involved. And that's scary :(

Re:Interesting Point

[Irish_Samurai]

What will it hurt to lose the the Chinese?

Strategic placement in a booming economy.

Re:Interesting Point

[AsherMaximum]

I'm not to up in the China issue. Are you saying that if Google didn't filter search results in China the Chinese government would block Google? If theat's th case, Google DID do what's best for the viewer of the site. It just happened to help the stockholders too.

Re:Interesting Point

[11223]

3. Run a series of ever-changing anonymous proxies to provide the average Chinese citizen with unfiltered internet access, even if it means breaking Chinese law - but don't do any business inside of China. Why does Google have an obligation to follow Chinese law, anyway? There are plenty of ways of increasing the availability of information inside China that don't involve complying with the filters.

Re:Interesting Point

[KutuluWare]

You are missing one key element here, in that what the US government is demanding from Google to do is not something they (yet) have any legal authority to demand. What the Chinese government demanded fell squarely in line with Chinese law. It's one thing for a collective of individuals to fight against unjust laws by simply ignoring them; corporations don't usually last too long when they try the same thing.

Re:Interesting Point

[aichpvee]

We all don't like China's way of running the government

Does anyone like OUR way of running the government either?

Re:Interesting Point

[t-10056]

1) Refuse China's request, therefore reducing the average Chinese citizen's access to information on the internet greatly.

Yahoo and Microsoft are there already to provide enough information to the average Chinese citizen. Google is here clearly for the money more than anything else, while the moral thing to do is not to cooperate with the regime.

t.

Re:Interesting Point

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that Google was actually able to be reached by some in China, albeit slowly. Will this remove the access of those people to open search results, using the same regioning technology as evidenced in the Google video store (ie. try purchasing from Google video store from Australia) to restrict Chinese to the .cn Google?

My personal perspective is that there are severe consequences to a world where people start doing things because "the ends justify the means"... I'm sure that the Chinese government used a similar argument when implementing the laws in the first place.

Re:Interesting Point

[Jagasian]

Mod parent up! There really is a third option that involves using technology to provide an uncensored Chinese Google to the Chinese people. Such an option is the truely innovative option. I also think that in this third option, Google would need to lobby Western governments to prevent other search engine companies from censoring content that the Chinese government finds objectionable.

Re:Interesting Point

[budgenator]

I really can't understand why such a request is legal, because I can't understand why such a request was made. Why was it made to Google?
Want a million random website, it seems to me that nmap would build a list of open port 80's, randomly select a million and feed them to wget. The headers would probably be as reliable as anything for finding porn, just grep for XXX and SEXXXX; porn site want to be found!
Real porn merchants don't want minors anyways, they don't have credit cards that they can legally use.

To establish weather a law is constitional, weather it is needed is irrelevent, so why ask for a million random searches? Seems like they are trying to implicate the search engines as distributers rather than trying to or not trying to protect minors from porn. I personaly suspect that stopping spam would protect more kids from porn than closing 10,000 porn websites.

Re:Interesting Point

[rindeee]

They will say no, take the request public and the free press would demolish Bush. The Chinese have no such option. You have done an excellent job of underscoring my point.

Re:Interesting Point

[dangitman]

Right. And blocking the warez sites is also wrong. I don't see how Google doing bad things in the US justifies bad actions in China.

You kidding me?

[ranton]

Wait a minute, I read the article and didnt find what law Google is breaking here. I am not even close to being a privacy advocate, in fact I usually am on the side of the government in issues like these. But I do not see what law Google is breaking.

This must not have to do with the "War on Terror", because I thought that Google couldnt even notify the press if that was the case.

Does anyone know more about this than simply what this article is saying?

--

Re:You kidding me?

[WebHostingGuy]

I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.

Seriously, the gist is that the government wants the search records so they can promote/support their war on porn. The law is that the government issued a subpoena, which is a court order, i.e., legal requirement to do something. Google said no because the subpoena essentially is not valid. This is the long story very abbreviated.

Re:You kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back and reread the article several times, slowly. While you are correct in that it doesn't list any specific law that Google is breaking, it does list what the case is about several times.

Re:You kidding me?

[Otter]

Wait a minute, I read the article and didnt find what law Google is breaking here.

They're not violating any law. They were subpoenaed for information and are contesting it.

At this point, they might as well hand it over. The only PR they're going to get out of this is "China, China, China".

Re:You kidding me?

[stecoop]

Of course it is the war on terror. Think of the children and then think of terror that the word boobies could potential put in them. If the life of one child is saved from the terror word boobies then it is all worth it.

Na thats not it. I think what is happening is there is a law that was passed the deals with pornography. I think Google was asked to fork over records for search queries from certain key words. Google has a team of lawyers saying that the law may be a law but it may not be constitutional. Now the courts are going to decide if Google has to fork over the records instead of Google just saying, "Ok, here you go big brother". Google isn't in the wrong it is in disagreement and that is what the courts are made for.

Re:You kidding me?

[conteXXt]

Wrong "war"

This one falls under the "War on Heathens"

It's about (supposedly) some porn bill.

Re:You kidding me?

[RingDev]

Google is resisting a subpoena.

It like went like this:
Feds: Give us your records
Google: No
Feds: We'll sue you!
Google: We're shaking in our booties
Feds: [thwap] subpoena!
Google: Hey ACLU, the Feds want your search history!
ACLU: F' You feds!
Feds: Hey Judge, they said no :( [pouty face]
Judge: All right ass hats, get in here.

-Rick

Re:You kidding me?

[kfg]

Wait a minute, I read the article and didnt find what law Google is breaking here.

Nobody said they were breaking any laws. They have been supeonaed to provide supporting evidence for a case in which they are not directly involved. They have refused to provide that evidence and the hearing is to have a judge decide whether they can be forced to or not.

It's SOP shit.

The only thing that makes it of any general interest is that the outcome of the case could affect us all.

KFG

Re:You kidding me?

[ranton]

The law is that the government issued a subpoena, which is a court order, i.e., legal requirement to do something. Google said no because the subpoena essentially is not valid

Okay that makes sense, but I wonder what legal trouble Google could get into. I hope that fighting a subpeona is not illegal even if you do not win, expecially if you had a valid reason to fight it.

--

Re:You kidding me?

[Liza]

I think Google was asked to fork over records for search queries from certain key words.

Actually, they were asked for all searches and search results over a two month period. IMO, the DOJ is trying to prove that lots of "innocent" searches generate porn results, therefore we need a law to protect children from seeing those "harmful to minors" search results.

Liza

Re:You kidding me?

[tinkerghost]

Rough history -
1) congress passed legislation saying if it's 'harmful' for kids to see it then the site owner has a legal duty to restrict access in some arbitrary and perfectly pointless way.
2) AG tried to enforce stupid law.
3) SC said some of the law is OK but other parts of it violate free speach - IE asking for a CC# to view a website restricts your ability to speak to the poor and underprivalidged(sp?).
4) AG says it's not so and even if it is so, it's our patriotic duty [wave flag here] to protect children from seeing or reading about sex. (Violence is ok, but Sex is bad - remember this, it's a core tennent to most conservative conversations)
5) AG says to SC, look we'll prove that there's so much smut on the internet that we HAVE to take THIS action and therefore you'll have to reconcider and let us do what we want.
6) AG says to search engines give us 1m random searches and websites so we can prove there is too much smut on the internet.
7) Yahoo,MS etc say OK.
8) Google says WTF?
9) AG takes them to court and tells the judge make them play our game in our sandbox.
10) judge says .....?

My problem with the whole thing is that even if there is so much smut that something should be done (we of course know that parental guidance and monitoring is positively the wrong way to go here), if the SC already said you can't do it the way the law is written, showing there's smut on the internet [say it isn't so] doesn't change the fact that the law restricts freedom of speech and can't be enforced.
IANAL - and this is so vague it's probably worthless, but it's a general summary of what I have been able to piece together.

Re:You kidding me?

[tribentwrks]

Finally someone explains politics in a way I can understand it! You should write a book explaining everything this way.

Re:You kidding me?

[glasseyetiger]

If the Feds aren't allowed to get the naked ladies off the internet, THEN WE'RE LETTING THE TERRORISTS WIN.

Re:You kidding me?

[PsychosisC]

This is the post concerning the court order that started all this. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/19/13 32207 As a note, this whole thing seems a bit trite. The government doesn't need "a broad range of material from its[Google's] closely guarded databases", to make the case for some porn law. But on the other hand, releasing information about anonymous porn searches doesn't really seem to be violating anyone's rights.

Re:You kidding me?

[quantum bit]

Of course it is the war on terror. Think of the children and then think of terror that the word boobies could potential put in them. If the life of one child is saved from the terror word boobies then it is all worth it.

They've got it all wrong. Terrorists don't have boobies, that's why they're so pissed off at the world. If their culture had a little more nudity in it they'd probably be more relaxed.

Re:You kidding me?

[Analogy Man]

In other words the government is too lazy to come up with a means of mining this information on their own so they are compelling a public company to supply the logs for them to perform their analysis.

I think with a little creativity the government could instrument a government institution...say HUD, DoD, DoE and trap any outgoing searches to major search engines. This might be even more useful as you could then toss these searches against ALL of the major search engines and see what results come back. You could determine if MSN is more likely to return porn links than Yahoo.

If there wasn't a buzz about government over-reach, people would be more likely to see this for what it is.

Re:You kidding me?

[SatanicPuppy]

Here is more information on subpoenas. Basically you have to show up at court, regardless, but once you get there you can argue for the reason why you shouldn't have to provide the stuff they say you should provide. If the judge thinks you're full of it, he/she can cite you for contempt, which has a variety of penalties, including fines and/or jail time. Otherwise, he/she can rule that the subpoena is invalid, and say that you don't have to comply.

Re:You kidding me?

[Sheepdot]

And it should have went like this:
Feds: Give us your records
Google: No
Feds: We need IPs and Searches, plz kkthnxbye
Google: No, that's a violation of privacy rights for you to have that and ...
ACLU: The constitution!
Google Customer: Wait, you said "no based on privacy rights" not "no based on that you didn't actually record that information"
Google: ...
Google Customer: So uh, you're recording IPs and searches for those IPs?
Google: ...
ACLU: The constitution!
Feds: haha, Google got pwned by teh customer! lollerskates. Your[sic] no better than us!
Google: :(

Re:You kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

The law is irrelevant.

Is it moral or immoral to force a peaceful individual or group of individuals to disclose information about themselves or their endeavors?

There is your answer. Who is committing the initiation of force: the peaceful group of individuals who do business by voluntary association, or the aggressive group which does business by force (meaning eventual violence if necessary)?

Re:You kidding me?

[Stan Vassilev]

"This must not have to do with the "War on Terror", because I thought that Google couldnt even notify the press if that was the case."

"War on Porn" is the term you're looking for.. yea.. "War on Porn", described as "defending our country from the modern threat of naked people shot on film".

We'll have to give up some of our civil liberties, such as privacy and personal information, but what the hell, I'd give anything to protect myself from the threat of naked people shot on film.

Re:You kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

They record IPs and the searches thereof to improve services and for zeitgeist/trending purposes, etc. It's all very obvious. What webserver doesn't have IP traffic logs, anyway?

Re:You kidding me?

[stavromueller]

I'm sure slashdot is keeping track of IP's and other pertinent information, as is just about every other website on the internet that gives a $hit about the demographics of their visitors. Don't like it? Use a proxy.

Re:You kidding me?

[tyrr]

Why would he write a book if he can write for Southpark?

Re:You kidding me?

[Anonymous Coward]

USA: You have weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam: O RLY?
USA: Ya rly.
Saddam: O RLY?
USA: Ya rly.
United Nations: NO WAI!!!!

Re:You kidding me?

[RingDev]

While I've never writen for Southpark, I have been quoting 'Team America' with some office mates for the last week. ;) -Rick

Re:You kidding me?

[daveb]

But on the other hand, releasing information about anonymous porn searches doesn't really seem to be violating anyone's rights.

What's so anonymous about a search term/phrase, an IP address and a time of day? Try this paranoia on for size (and these days you can NOT be too paranoid):

• You're a govt uber-police agent targetting someone
• You need to intimidate, threaten or maybe fishing for info to support a warrent
• supeona the targets ISP logs for the client's connection times and allocated IP addresses
• Grep the latest search logs
• Profit

Most people do not value the rather rich data they throw in the trash and most people think that logs are irrelevent. And in themselves they are - all it takes is a little data matching. This is NOT far fetched.

Re:You kidding me?

[budgenator]

Basically pornography is defined by comunity standards, so what porn in the bible-belt is different than what's porn in California.
The law COPA says you have to protect minors from porn.
the legal thing is basicaly the law is unconstitional because if some erotica is legal in california, and not in tennesee people are not being equally protected under the law.
why they want sample searches and websites eludes me, it seems they either want to incriminate search engines, or try and say the problem is so pervasive the constition doesn't matter. If it's the later then they'll be shot down in the courts but can say they tried, to satify the extremist in the country without actually doing anything.

Re:You kidding me?

[ArsonSmith]

I say start now with seeding the data in googles searchs.

Start searching for things like

"us government tramples peoples rights and supoenas search logs from google"

or

"bush administration invades privacy by supoening search logs from google"

correct the spelling of course.

Re:You kidding me?

[Nyarly]

Google Customer: Wait, you said "no based on privacy rights" not "no based on that you didn't actually record that information"
Google: ...

Actually, it's more like:

Google: Um, yeah. We kept telling you "it's not the usually Yada yada." You don't like it? That sucks, but we told you we were doing it.
Customer: Oh. But, what about don't be evil?
ACLU: Constitution!
Google: One at a time, fer crying out loud. We're still not evil, and the Constitution has nothing to do with it. Next question!
Feds: Um, records?
All: Oh, do shut up.

I hope Google wins this one

[digitaldc]

Let's hope that Google wins. There could be several unexpected consequences if the Government wins this one.

Everything from possible unreasonable search & seizure violations to exposing Google's proprietary trade secrets.

Does anyone actually think that these 'fishing expeditions' are protecting children or making us safer?

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[hsmith]

You seem to forget that judges are part of the government system. They may seem "impartial" but they are still part of the entire system, they can't be totally impartial.

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Well, fair's fair. If the DoJ thinks it's part of the legislative branch, why can't judges appoint themselves part of the executive? ;-)

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[Anonymous Coward]

The DoJ is part of the executive branch. Judges are the judicial branch. The DoJ are the prosecutors for Feds. Not the same thing.

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what I want Google to pay attention, is not to concentrate only on the federal law side, but see the laws of physics, because even the federal law changes according to the laws of physics...

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I believe you spectacularly failed to get the point of my post, Mr AC. But thanks for the tip. :-)

Re:I hope Google wins this one

[rhook]

Does anyone actually think t[blockquote]Does anyone actually think that these 'fishing expeditions' are protecting children or making us safer?[/blockquote] No! 99% of the time the government says its "to protect the children" what they really mean is "give up your rights so we can wipe our ass with another piece of the constitution". Besides how in the hell is obtaining search records going to keep porn away from kids? I dont know about you but when I was younger I knew where my dads stash of playboys was.hat these 'fishing expeditions' are protecting children or making us safer?

No! 99% of the time the government says its doing something "to protect the children" what they really mean is "give up your rights". And do you really think thats all they're going to use these records for? Besides how in the hell is obtaining search records going to keep porn away from kids? I dont know about you but when I was younger I knew where my dads stash of Playboys was.

Not defend a law...

[NewToNix]

to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department will prevail in its fight to force Google to help it defend an anti-pornography law

This is about trying to revisit (show the need for) a law that has already been struck down.

So it's not about a law at all, it's about the governments attempt to show the need for a law.

And trying to use Google records for that is as relevant as using a /. poll for the same (or any other) purpose.

Re:Not defend a law...

[coastin]

Well, there's the answer. "You're Honor, my client (Google) contends that a /. poll could solve this whole issue much faster and at much less cost to the tax payers."

Re:Not defend a law...

[NewToNix]

Well, there's the answer. "You're Honor, my client (Google) contends that a /. poll could solve this whole issue much faster and at much less cost to the tax payers."

And in addition, your Honor, with a equal or greater degree of accuracy.

We have a /. poll here to enter into evidence in support of our position.

Please ignore the "CowboyNeal" option, we consider that a statistical anomaly... much like our own records would contain, if we were willing to give them to you - but were not - and for about the same reasons.

Everyone should file...

[coastin]

an amicus Curiae brief with the court just to see what your favorite politicians are searching for at Google. I'll bet the Feds would shut the whole thing down if that happened.

Google should comply

[Anonymous Coward]

They should supply a list of URLs that google has indexed.

The list should be in the form of 0 byte length files where the filename is the URL -- on a FAT partition.

When the DOJ asks why all they see is millions of files named "http:/~1" google should point them to the FAT long filenames patents.

Fran

Re:Google should comply

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFL pure genius! I'd love to see their face when told about the patent!

Re:Google should comply

[Anonymous Coward]

muahahaha! oh please, please, let someone from Google read this.

Re:Google should comply

[Baddas]

I was thinking another method: Print them out. Ship a thousand or so reams of paper with all of the requested data on them in very, very tiny font.

Lovejoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't somebody think please of the children!?!?

Re:Lovejoy!

[st1d]

Lol! Let's see, this is a little like asking for the records of all alchohol and tobacco, "to protect the children from underage purchases". Of course, the fact that google's got all these searches all wrapped up in one place (versus the hassle of taking every mom and pop party store to court) has nothing to do with it, huh?
.
I wonder if they saved those "old german crosses" and eagles, because if this "information gathering" continues unchecked, they might come in handy soon. On the upside, it's understandable that a bunch of old folks with arthritis might enjoy marching and saluting without having to bend their knees and elbows...

Re:Lovejoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am just curious, are there any scientific research proving the obvious harmfulness of pornography for children?

Re:Lovejoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.protectkids.com/effects/harms.htm But there is written in the beginning, that "every child who views pornography will not necessarily be affected and, at worst, traumatized in the same way"

When is google going to sue the Chicoms?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be fun to watch what would happen to them if google tried that.

But that won't happen because google are cowards.

Slavery

[MikeRT]

They are asking Google to pay for this part of their lawsuit to protect the COPA law at their own expense. Google gets nothing out of it. I'm sure that Google could have been paid a few hundred thousand dollars to write a test suite to prove the DoJ's case. One Google engineer could have written a script that would have given them millions of results based on simulating actual search queries.

Yet the DoJ didn't want to be bothered to have to pay for this. This is slavery because they are forcing someone to work for their benefit without compensation or as a form of restitution for a crime against their life or property. There is no middle ground here. The DoJ is in the wrong because they refused to pay for the data they wanted and attempted to extort it using the force of law.

Re:Slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? DoJ's payment are better laws for the society to function.

Re:Slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with you on that. Nowhere have I really seen anything about an offer to purchase this data from Google. This is proprietary information that Google has mined, and as such should be paid for, not sued for. I'm not sure of privacy issues here, but it does seem wrong that the DoJ is trying to take this data for free.

Re:Slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

Who told you that? And you believed them? Aww, how quaint...

Re:Slavery

[Julian Morrison]

Par for the course - all government is that form of slavery. What do you think they're doing to you for the 50+% of the year you're working to pay the taxman or keep the regulators happy? You might as well be in shackles.

Re:Slavery

[9Nails]

Quote: "WTF? DoJ's payment are better laws for the society to function."

My society functions very well, thank-you.

Incase you didn't notice, Google is a company that has to pay it's employees. (Well, most of them - don't go there!) Better laws, is an opinion, not a fact. I for one, don't want the government to place so much control on its people through Law that we are told what we can look at with our eyes and what words we can type with our fingers. A government should only provide security and protection for it's citizens. In some cases, special assistance is beneficial. But when they come down to demanding that your company needs to preform unpaid work for them, that's where we draw the line.

Re:Slavery

[budgenator]

Maybe google should say "ok fine just open up a printer port and we'll shoot the data to your printer over the internet!"

they can kiss my ...

[NaeRey]

!!! If the government wins this one, i'll go around the white house protesting for Privacy Breaking. The China case has been somewhat silent, no details. I'm hoping google wins this, else next thing you see is WhiteHouse shutting down GoogleEarth because it provides too good pictures of possible terrorist-strike-places. To hell em! (Feds) (get me a Flamer icon)

use this time well

[Anonymous Coward]

use this time well, search google for the most obscene and not-entirely-legal queries. overwhelm the db with junk data so if google loses the data will be useless (and the look on the faces of people who view the db will be priceless!)

Re:use this time well

[dr2chase]

Bob Harris suggests this URL for your homepage:

I made it mine.

Do we want to innovate on censorship?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if google makes censoring as easy as searching? No more black markers and photcopiers. Instead, just enter the keyword of what you want to disappear.

Do we really want google building technology to help China censor search? And if they build it, will the US someday want it too?

This is all assuming the above events haven't already occurred.

China Situation Irrelevant

[szembek]

Google's actions in China are a completely different situation than this. In order for Google to operate in China they must filter the results. As crappy as that is there's nothing Google can do to change that. China doesn't need Google; there are plenty of sufficient engines out there. In this case however the US government is not enforcing a law that is pre-existing, it is simply trying to gain access to what most consider to be private information. It would be different if there was some federal law saying "if it has to do with child porn, companies have to help us". In summation the China issue has to do with law compliance, this has to do more with compliance to a request.

New Google Service

[JFlex]

Google must have some massive plan to organize the world's porn for faster and more efficient searching. I, for one, look forward to pr0n.google.com!

Re:New Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah :) G-wank instead of G-mail :). would be funny if google tried to patent G-Spot :) i dare lawyers to come up with "prior 'art'"

Re:New Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

While you may be being funny, it is possible to use a "pr0n only" filter by comparing a safe search to an unfiltered search. And yes, I have made a script to do this.

Re:New Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

"There believe there is prior art, your Honor, it's just that no-one can find it."

Re:New Google Service

[Anonymous Coward]

They could always just buy out Booble...

More details here

[Anonymous Coward]

Be sure to click this link a couple of million times ;-)

Re:More details here

[AaronCampbell]

If your link worked, it would probably help (also, it's unconstitutional not unconstituitional):
Google: DOJ COPA law is unconstitutional

Freedom of ?

[FidelCatsro]

I know you have freedom of speech in the USA, I was however unaware about the amendment that allowed the government to stick you in a sound shielded room so nobody hears you.

Re:Freedom of ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a point, make it.

Past records

[Tourney3p0]

Even if the government loses this one, they have the power to make laws which will make it legal. Basically they can potentially do anything they want to win this one in the future. It's not like this administration has a history of fighting for our rights. The question then becomes whether or not they'd be able to seize past records. If Google wins this, that means that as of right now my search records are off limits. Hypothetically speaking, I have this reasonable expectation in mind when doing my searches and might change my search patterns appropriately otherwise.

Re:Past records

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, these bastards won't stop til they win against Google. The best Google can probably hope for is for it to take so long that it rolls over into the next (and hopefully more reasonable) administration. I wasn't surprised that the court date is so soon, a month away. The government acts swiftly in things it's interested in (the 2003 invasion of Iraq for instance). The rush certain things through under the guise of nation security or "the children", yet drag their feet on whatever they don't like. We all know that Tom DeLay's case is going to take a long long time.

Re:Past records

[Anonymous Coward]

What about moving a company from the US to avoid the US law?

Re:Past records

[yuriismaster]

Except for that the House and Senate have to pass the law first.

And if they pass a law saying "OMG We can search everything ever" I think the Supreme Court (even if Alito is approved) would have to agree it conflicts with the Fourth Amendment.

If the following transpires in this nation, I vow to become as crazy as Granny D (see http://grannyd.com/)

I: The House and Senate pass a law giving the executive branch the authority to search these private records, whether or not they previously had the right to.
II: The president approves such a law (not too difficult to comprehend once I is done)
III: Someone sues after refusing to comply with the law (hopefully Google again)
IV: After appealing up to the Supreme Court, the Court determines that the law is valid and constitutional.

Anyone care to join me?

Yep, those bosses need all the help they can get

[tiltowait]

I disagree. Subsidizing evil's still evil. Many are claiming Google's shunning of the government's request has nothing to do with protecting privacy, but rather trade secrets, which could be reverse engineered from making such massive lists (potentially) public. As with the censored Chinese Google News, when it comes to removing content, from Google News sources to multiple DMCA complaints to the now infamous Google Print caving in to publishers legal threats, the company has been consistent: they do what's best for stockholder value. I don't see how their slogan can be "do no evil" for much longer.

As for your foreign policy analogies, I'm a bigger fan of Containment than Brinkmanship, but that's just because I saw the former work with the USSR and what the latter is accomplishing today.

What bothers me

[Sheepdot]

One thing that really bothers me (and no one as yet has asked) is why Google responded the way they did.

IMHO, when the Federal Government asks for searches, getting a response of: "We don't think it's constitutional for you to be requesting that kind of information on the general public" instead of, "WE'RE NOT ASSHOLISH ENOUGH TO RECORD EVERYONE'S SEARCHES!" is the difference between someone who fights for their stock price (theirself in the eyes of the public), and someone who truly does fight for liberty or freedom.

The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it. Google will break a deal and keep recording what people search for. If they would have been smart and just never recorded searches in the first place (which they do on the Google Search Appliance) then this wouldn't have been a big deal.

IMHO, their response should not have been "No, we will not give you that information." it should have been, "No, we do not record that information." I've been using Yahoo's streamlined search at http://search.yahoo.com/ now for the last two months, but this alone would be enough to make me switch if I hadn't already. I loathe MSN's search, but I've found Yahoo's to be nice enough that I just never enable cookies.

I think Internet searching at the same place that you hold an active email account is probably the worst thing you could possibly do for privacy right now. And it doesn't matter who it is.

Also of note:
http://blog.outer-court.com/googlerobot/

While that is intended to be funny, I think this is pertinent:

I have a feeling of being watched by a Google Robot. What about my privacy?
Again, we take great measures to ensure no privacy is ever invaded. Even if there is a Google Robot next to you, it doesn't mean he records everything you say. You can think of him as a quiet neighbor doing gardening work. Do you suspect your neighbor to spy on your life... just because he's within a short distance of you?

"evil" comes from "yfel" and has roots in Germanic languages of High German "ubil" and Gothic "ubils". These are believed to come from the Teutonic root "ubiloz" which carries the meaning of "up" or "over". Basically, it means, "going over the boundaries" or going "above and beyond" in a malicious fashion.

So yes, Google, I *do* think you are evil.

Re:What bothers me

[Tacvek]

IMHO, their response should not have been "No, we will not give you that information." it should have been, "No, we do not record that information."

I'm not sure that that would be right either. Let us assume that Google is not evil at all. It would still make sense to keep track of every set of search terms every searched for, and the number of times in a certain tyime period (say a week) that that term was searched for. They would use this information to keep track of the current most popular searches. They could look at the results these searches returned and see if there are many irrelevent results. If there are, then they would look at their current algorithm and see if some tweaks could be made to increase the relevence of the top search results.

Perhaps you are confusing retaining information that could potentially be identifying with being evil. But if that is the case, you would be evil if ou archived old email as that may contain personally identifying information.

Or do you think Mozilla Firefox is evil? It is published by Mozilla Foundation's wholely owned commerical subsidiary: Mozilla Corportation.

Re:What bothers me

[szembek]

If I'm not mistaken Yahoo! not only keeps the logs you are so upset about, but actually turned theirs over to the DOJ without argument. So doesn't that kind of debunk your argument of google being 'evil' for keeping records?

Re:What bothers me

[Sheepdot]

Depends.

Google is putting up a fight (which they'll eventually settle on) simply for the sake of looking good, whereas Yahoo isn't. Granted, there are likely other search engines that don't make up the 99% of searches on the Internet that you could use instead, but they are pretty crappy.

The main point of the post was to suggest people keep email accounts with one provider and do searches on another provider and never accept cookies.

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that they are legally required to maintain records by SOX.

Specifically, you need to know what was searched to rank search results. By needing to know that information, SOX mandates that you keep backups of that information.

In order to run a search engine you must thus log all searches. However, you do not need to log user information (though IP information may be maintained simply via the HTTP logs which would also need to be saved).

You'd be stunned at the information IT depts can be legally required to maintain for papertrails to prove no wrongdoing. Search information without IPs is pretty innocent as far as Big Brother is concerned(URL X was returned to searchers 871 times in 2 weeks), but it still should not be given in that it has no relevance to the lawsuit at hand for COPA's reinstatement.

Re:What bothers me

[MandoSKippy]

Umm yeah... I am going to have go head and ... disagree with you on this one

A. Google provides a free service. To pay their bills they use search data, add views, etc. They have a right to save that data. THey tell you up front they are saving it (check their terms of of use) and make no pretenses about it not being saved. They need to make money too... sorry, everything in this world is not free. Google worked for the information they store and have a right to it. The goverment does not.

B. This law suit would be like the goverment going up to a Bank and saying give us all your checking account transactions... names hidded (snicker) so we can see who is paying for porn. If that happened, the response would be insane. There is no difference, many checking accounts are free as well. Yes, if there is a crime suspected, the gov't can get bank records, but not just for statistic analysis.

Re:What bothers me

[daBass]

The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person

That is not correct. A corporation, according to law, is a person, with the same rights. They have freedom of speech, can't have their property seized with due process, etc, just like and American citizen. I guess they would even have the right to bear arms!

Corporations have been using that "loophole" to quote the constitution in their defence for as long as it exists.

Re:What bothers me

[WhiteWolf666]

The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it. Google will break a deal and keep recording what people search for. If they would have been smart and just never recorded searches in the first place (which they do on the Google Search Appliance) then this wouldn't have been a big deal.

There's a HUGE difference, and I think the government most likely won't win this case. DoJ is probably incredibly surprised the Google is fighting this, and given the recent PR regarding China, this is an excellent way for Google to demonstrate their "Do No Evil" policy, at least in the U.S.

Google acknowledges that they collect data, however, for consumers to be comfortable with that, consumers need to know that data will not be abused. Most people would consider federal government data mining about pornography "mis-use". You say that Google shouldn't be collecting data. Well, guess what: Data collection IS Google's PRIMARY business, both in terms of indexing websites, caching websites (and images, and video, and sound, and news), and in terms of search records, for advertising. Without data collection, there IS no Google; your under a serious delusion if you think they could function without search records. The key is not that they collect data, the key is they keep that data sacred. No one, not you, not me, not the government, not Google employees, is allowed to peruse that data. That data is soley used for targeted advertising and search optimization, and only by software algorhthm. Google stakes its reputation on this ironclad privacy guarantee.

People don't want the federal government playing around with their porn search records. It's as simple as that. If (and when) Google wins this case, it makes AOL, MSN, and Altavista look really bad for just rolling over and playing dead. You want your data private, even though a search engine will collect it? You want to have trust in a company that will fight for your right to privacy?

Trust Google. That we see Google fighting things like this out, versus AOL or MSN, is a BIG deal.

It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it.

It's totally different. Google doesn't have a monopoly on physical force, nor can Google arrest you, nor can Google play any of the other dirty tricks a government regularly would. Google uses information for one purpose: advertising. If Google can convince you your information won't be used for any other purpose, they'll have a monopoly on high quality data for high quality advertising.

It's well recognized that the government will misuse personal data collection; this is why we (both democrats and republicans) disapprove of national federal data collection. Indeed, most capitalists see no problem with data collection by private organizations, because they can't force you to comply. This is totally different that the federal government, and real capitalists acknowledge that the government should be under much stricter scrutiny because of its unique position.

Your also oversimplyfing the legal case, as well. I quote:

Google vowed last week to fight a renewed request from the agency, calling the subpoena overbroad. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all conceded that they have turned over some records, noting that they did so in a limited fashion involving only aggregated data and no personally identifiable information.

Leahy said in his letter that his concerns came "against the backdrop of strong public concern over the government's monitoring of Internet communications and warrantless eavesdropping on the telephone conversations of American citizens."

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the department planned to respond accordingly, though h

Re:What bothers me

[zrenneh]

The feds aren't asking for any identifiable information. They're asking for a random sample of 1 million URLs and 1 million searches from Google's database, with the user-identifying information removed. Google is making a big fuss over this lawsuit in order to gain some great PR and appear to be on the side of the users. Whether they are or not is open to debate (see below).

Re:What bothers me

[Tezkah]

IMHO, their response should not have been "No, we will not give you that information." it should have been, "No, we do not record that information." I've been using Yahoo's streamlined search at http://search.yahoo.com/ now for the last two months, but this alone would be enough to make me switch if I hadn't already. I loathe MSN's search, but I've found Yahoo's to be nice enough that I just never enable cookies.

so your search results were probably already given to the feds, as yahoo and MSN and aol complied with the fed's request to them.

Dont enable cookies on google, and noone will have a record of your searches, not google, not the feds. With yahoo... you can't be too sure.

but hey! Yahoo isn't getting any press about compromising your privacy, so they must not be doing anything wrong, compared to that EVIL GOOGLE FOR STANDING UP TO AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL ORDER. Those bastards! If you excuse me, I am going to use search.gov.cn from now on.

Re:What bothers me

[ChaosDiscord]

The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it.

What are you talking about? Google, as a company, is legally free to collect and keep whatever data it likes. Google didn't force other companies to hand over data; they collected it themselves from users who voluntarily visited Google. The government is also free to collect the data it likes (within the limitations of the fourth amendment). But the government has no particular grounds to force Google to cough up Google's collection of information. Google is not charged with any crime. The government isn't seeking the information in regards to a specific crime. Those are reasons for a supeona. Fishing expeditions hoping to find something to justify a law that the Supreme Court is already pretty ticked at is hardly grounds for search and seizure.

If they would have been smart and just never recorded searches in the first place (which they do on the Google Search Appliance) then this wouldn't have been a big deal.

Records of search results (at very least in the form of standard webserver log files) are a useful and powerful tool for optimizing your web service and debugging problems. Sometimes it's useful to be able to compare what people are search for from, say, a year ago to today's results. I would expect any major online service to keep at least a year's logs, and the government's request was for data within that year.

I'm also betting Google's Search Appliance does keep all sorts of interesting logs. Of course, those log probably aren't shipped off to Google, which is appropriate since the data would proprietary to the company which paid for the appliance.

IMHO, their response should not have been "No, we will not give you that information." it should have been, "No, we do not record that information." I've been using Yahoo's streamlined search at http://search.yahoo.com/ now for the last two months, but this alone would be enough to make me switch if I hadn't already. I loathe MSN's search, but I've found Yahoo's to be nice enough that I just never enable cookies.

You know that your dear friend Yahoo (and MSN) when confronted with identical subpeonas from the government turned over the information without any challenge, right? Google has flaws, maybe even serious ones, but they're certainly trying harder than their competitors.

I think Internet searching at the same place that you hold an active email account is probably the worst thing you could possibly do for privacy right now. And it doesn't matter who it is.

What a strange thing to obsess over as the worst thing for ones privacy. First, while disassociating your email from your searches will make you slightly harder to track down, any search engine still has your IP address and when you contacted. If there was a serious legal case, that information could be used to contact your ISP and track you down. Add in some cookies and other data mining techniques and your gain is pretty minimal. And is Google knowing what searches you're making really that much worse than, say, your credit card company knowing everything you purchase on your credit card?

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

"user-identifying information " I don't care how non-evil Google is supposed to be - they have no business collecting "user-identifying information ". General statistics without "user-identifying information " is fine.

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Google has lots of information, as well as lots of brain to process it. But another thing is, it is wise not to telling the things, but listening. And it looks like a far-looking company. However, I would like that this company started thinking not in 10s of years, but in hundreds. There is not so much where to be hurry. Google, try reading some of the http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument breaks down because of Regulation and convenience.

Is there law that requires search engines(Google) to record search results and index?? NO! Google does this to run a 'Better' search engine than others.

Is there a particular reason a public Company, Google, should just bow to any request made by the Government? Last time I was working for an ISP, if the cops came to get someones information, IP lease history, they needing something called a "WARRANT". From my boss: "It is in my interest as a business owner to respect the rights of my customers, aggreed upon by the terms of our contract". IMO, The same logic applies for Googles situation.

Although in theory, couldn't the Gov. just search and see whats comes up or would that just be to costly and time consuming on the Fed's part?

Frankly, I don't see how this request by the Fed's will actually solve the problems they are trying to solve. From my understanding of COPA and what the Fed's want, this is just parenting of websites.

Why are minors in a position to have unrestricted access to the Internet in the first place, PARENTS???

As a Computer & Network Administrator, I am FULLY AWARE of what it takes to lock down a PC to shield a minor from inappropriate sites!!!!! Its not my fault parents are lazy/incompetent, and politicians need to appear to be doing something worthwhile, while in all reality, infringing upon Indoctrined Rights (see Constitution, and Bill of Rights accordingly).

Re:What bothers me

[Liza]

Here's the thing about subpoenas, or don't blame Google for having this particular information.

Once someone, like DOJ, asks you for this kind of information as part of a legal proceeding, you have to retain or create it unless it's an undue burden on you/your business to do so, or you don't routinely create/retain that information.

You can still fight in court about whether or not you have to turn over the info, and whether or not the request is actually valid. But imagine how obnoxious it would be if at the end of the challenge to the subpoena, the losing party could say "oh, it turns out we don't even have that data any more. Neener-neener-boo-boo!"

Obviously, for a company like Google, it isn't that big of a burden to retain search queries over a specified period of time, even if normally they only keep them cached for 24 hours, or to aggregate the top 100 search terms per day, or whatever their regular business practice is.

And that's why Google has to fight this based on privacy protection, not based on "we don't have the info."

BTW, in my comment above, I made a mistake. It isn't all searches and search results over the two month period that DOJ requested. DOJ actually requested a random sample from that period.

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is putting up a fight ... whereas Yahoo isn't.

What you said in the middle there was irrelevant. If I have to pick between a company that fights for me and one that doesn't, I'll choose the one that fights, regardless of what their reason is.

Re:What bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

for google this isn't a fuss over data, it's a fight to the death for google's credibility. i watch pr0n. people who say they don't are lying. google doesn't care. it'll just go fetch you your porn and forget it ever happened (like a goldfish circling about his castle saying "hey nice castle. hey nice castle. hey nice castle. hey nice castle. yeah you get the picture). people don't like the idea of that particular 2-second-memory fish being stephen hawking instead, spilling every bit of information about who searched what. yes i know, they're only spilling information, but i'm a geek. people who don't know that much about internet will think "OHMYGOD I'M BUST3D!" thus ruining google's reputation.

Inside the Courtroom

[Billosaur]

Govt lawyer: We need to see this cached data if we're ever to curb terrorism!

Google lawyer (waving hand): You don't need to see our data.

Govt lawyer: We don't need to see their data.

Google lawyer: You won't find any terrorists with it.

Govt lawyer: We won't find any terrorists with it.

Google lawyer: You are dropping your request

Govt lawyer: We are dropping our request

Google lawyer 2: I was sure we were dead back there.

Google lawyer: The Force (tm) has a strong influence on the weak-minded.

Re:Inside the Courtroom

[Ziviyr]

The Force (tm) Beta, you mean...

Google's Intellectual Property NOT privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

This isnt a privacy issue. The Gov't is NOT asking for Personally identifiable information (PII). They are only asking for query impressions (which any half wit can get through their Google Adwords campaigns today). Google just doesnt want to give up their crown jewel of IP - queries and impression data.

There isn't much of a privacy argument around an aggregation of the times someone types in "boston hotels" in Google. I think its bullshit that Google is hiding the truth of why they dont want to share this info.

Read more @ NYtimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/technology/26pri vacy.html?hp&ex=1138251600&en=b4a2e39a6aacb8c1&ei= 5094&partner=homepage

Not Spying

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, usually I don't step in to these crazy Slashdot arguments, but I have to voice the truth here.

The government is NOT ATTEMPTING TO SPY ON ITS CITIZENS.

It is asking for general information, i.e. nothing connected with names or individual identities in any way. As far as the information is concerned, it would be the same as the government asking Gallup to do a survey about how easy it is to find porn on the internet when you aren't specifically looking for it.

If asking for statistics is spying, then hundreds of survey companies have been doing it for years. And *GASP* they've been SHOWING THE RESULTS TO THE PUBLIC!!!!!11

While I don't know about the legality of the subpoena, the information itself is completely legal and is in no way spying on citizens.

Here is a good article about the privacy issue:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01 /21/google_subpoena_roils_the_web/

Here is an FAQ from CNet:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+What+does+the+Google+subpo ena+mean/2100-1029_3-6029042.html?tag=st.num

From the second article:

"Google even displays a list of live search terms on a screen that visitors can view in its Silicon Valley headquarters. That's probably one reason why the company's lawyers have been careful not to raise privacy arguments."

I don't see how what the government is doing is any worse than that.

Re:Not Spying

[Shakes268]

Google even displays a list of live search terms on a screen that visitors can view in its Silicon Valley headquarters.

Maybe its just me, but that in itself seems like a HR violation waiting to happen. Imagine having to look at a scrolling board in your companies lobby of all of the things searched for!

You take a break and walk outside for some air, look up and see PORN terms scrolling by during your entire work day.

Re:Not Spying

[jafiwam]

Yeah, because the opinion of an Anonymous Coward carries a lot of weight on the issue. You yourself seem to not want the limited number of people viewing this thread not to know who posted the above. (And it's not flamebait or anything, it's actually quite useful.) So... what do you fear?

I for one, will call bullshit on any claim like this (parent) until I see a complete list of the database fields and specifics of how each field is populated and the typical contents and compare that to what the feds have asked for.

Media has a long, wide, and repeated track record of getting technical stuff wrong. So I DO NOT TRUST their intepretation of "no personal information" in the data the feds asked for.

The IP address and time stamp (maybe not even that is needed) is _PERSONAL_ information that feds have no right to without a warrant. GO GET ONE if you need it. Just about the only data Google may be keeping about searches that the feds have any right to would be search word combinations and the results they yielded at the time. But even those will reveal a lot of information that could personally identify users.

But then, with a T1 and a few scripts they could get results for porn searches themselves.

So stuff you and your anonymous opinion about it.

Re:Not Spying

[PalefaceWhitey]

...it would be the same as the government asking Gallup to do a survey... Except that:

1. Gallup would conduct a poll of willing and anonymous participants,
2. Gallup would be paid to do such a survey,
3. Google is not a polling agency, and
4. Since when is the gov't allowed to demand information for purposes of supporting a lobbying effort? Note that this isn't a law enforcement thing, it's because the executive branch wants to lobby for a law to be passed. If this information is so valuable to the legislative process, let Congress subpoena Google. It's not the DOJ's job.

Re:Not Spying

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I actually have refrained from signing up for a Slashdot account--mostly because the people on here are irrational and don't know the facts...and I am not a coward. I will even tell you that my name is Joel, and if I ever do get an account, I'll be sure to let you know so that you can hate on me some more.

2)Did you even read the articles? By the way, even CNet agrees that there is no real privacy issue, and they usually get tech things right. If you still don't believe me, I'll go ahead and get you some more articles.

3)Obviously you didn't read past the second line of my post either, or you would have known that Google displays your searches real-time so that visitors can see them...which is exactly what you're so concerned about.

4)Google, Yahoo!, any email provider, any bank or credit card company, has so much information on you that it is scary. If people are so afraid of their privacy being invaded, then we shouldn't put so much info in such readily-accessed places.

5)I was never arguing that the DoJ had a right to subpoena...I even stated this in my post. I was simply stating the fact that they are not trying to invade our privacy by gathering this information.

6)"Just about the only data Google may be keeping about searches that the feds have any right to would be search word combinations and the results they yielded at the time." ...Uh...if you read the articles that I posted, that's exactly--no more and no less--what the DoJ is asking for.

So basically we see that you got a mod 2 for a reply which you made without reading the sources, having already closed your mind to all possibilities except that the Government is inherently evil and Google is the god of all things benevolent.

That's why I haven't created an account with this *wonderful* website...not because I am afraid that the big bad jafiwam might come to my house in the night with his chainsaw.

Re:Not Spying

[dangitman]

The government is NOT ATTEMPTING TO SPY ON ITS CITIZENS.

Didn't Bush straight-out admit that he was spying on citizens, and that anyone who questioned this was giving aid to terrorists?

Re:Not Spying

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the intent to annoy you with this post !!!

Re: COPA isn't about child porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Not child porn. It's COPA - the Child Online Protection Act (i.e., "Son of CDA.") COPA is not about prosecuting child pornographers, but about eliminating plain old 'indecency' on the Net that can harm children who find it online. The gov't has been litigating these pathetically vague efforts to regulate Internet decency since ACLU v. RENO in the mid-nineties.

It's gone nowhere, it's an embarrassment and a waste of taxpayer dollars. But Congress has fetishized (appropriate verb, given the context) this need to regulate plain old porn on the Net, and the Justice Dept. gets stuck trying to enforce these ridiculous laws. Chances are, not even everyone at DOJ thinks these net 'indecency' laws are worth the trouble.

If the government wins

[wayward]

If the government wins and is able to subpoena Google search records, would it be feasible to develop a script that generates bogus Google queries with terms that will trip off the government's data mining software? If there were enough of these in the logs (coming from different IP addresses), could that make the data much harder to mine? Just curious.

Re:If the government wins

[pauljlucas]

If the government wins, Google should destroy their records akin to the way librarians are destroying theirs. The government can't get what you don't have.

Re:If the government wins

[wayward]

Yeah, some people said that Google would probably do that. But wouldn't destroying information after it's been subpoenaed get them in a lot of trouble? The difference with librarians and ISPs is that they make a point of not storing the information in the first place, which means that they actually wouldn't have anything if they got a subpoena.

Re:If the government wins

[pauljlucas]

If Google's lawyers were smart, they would have never admitted to having the information:

Govt: Give us your search data.
Google: No.

If all Google sais was "No," then they never said they had any data to give. They could be merely saying "No" as a matter of principle. Prove otherwise.

Re:If the government wins

[wayward]

I'm wondering how plausible it would be if Google tried to claim that they had no search records. For example, when you misspell a word, it's able to ask, "Did you mean to search for ....?" based on information about previous searches. This would indicate that Google was indeed retaining something.

Re:If the government wins

[pauljlucas]

It's not clear to me that Google uses previous searches to do the "Did you mean to search for?" thing. You can also do fuzzy matching and if you get more results from a fuzzy match than the non-fuzzy one, that's when you ask the question.

Re:If the government wins

[pclminion]

The whole reason Google records search results is to improve the quality of search and provide new features. If you make that database useless in order to confound the government, you also screw up Google.

Re:If the government wins

[wayward]

Good point. I'd wondered if there was a way of submitting a relatively small number of queries with terms that the data mining software would pick up - not enough to mess up Google, but enough to make it harder for the government to mine. Let me clarify - I'm not planning to do this, but the situation made me curious whether it would be possible.

Re:If the government wins

[budgenator]

http://www.google.com/search?q=subversion&start=0& ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla :en-US:official

Re:If the government wins

[budgenator]

damn that wasn't the preview button.
just write a script the evokes wget with the above sting and back comes the query. by changing the q=subversion to q=query you'll query google for query, changinge start=0 to start=10 gets the second page. you can dump the returned page to /dev/null or save it pretty easily. If you've got a website you can search for one of your key words untill you hit the page with your URL automaticaly and track your page rank over time; basically pretty easy stuff.

building a dictionary of USG's hot words and running the script might even get you labled an internet terrorist!

Re:Amazing

[QCompson]

I was under the impression that this wasn't about child-pr0n, but about a law attempting to restrict minor's access to good old everyday pr0n. It's a huge waste of time and resources by the government(what else is new). Good luck trying to keep a 15,16 year-old male away from pr0n!

To me it seems like a heavy-handed blow intended to fight pornography in general under the guise of the always effective "won't someone think of the children!" argument.

Out of court settlement

[Anonymous Coward]

'Look guys - let's be reasonable. I'm sure we can resolve this without going to court. My client says you can keep your data. But that thing which "I'm feeling lucky" and "Failure" - that's gotta stop. OK?'

Re:Amazing

[WindBourne]

This is almost certainly not about any kind of porn. I am guessing that a great deal of porn is downloaded via p2p, and will only grow. IOW, those that are into it, will not use the main search engines. This is probably about terrorism or more likely trying to find out who is querying the capabilities of the NSA or biologicals. BTW, if this was really about porn, the gov would not be scheduling a hearing this fast. There is some other reason to get a hearing within a month.

A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Jagasian]

Compare this American Google image search for "tiananmen square" to the same search in the Chinese Google image search. While a disclaimer is displayed saying that some results were blocked do to Chinese law, the disclaimer does not tell what kind of results were blocked. Hence when the people ask, the Chinese government can just say that the results were pornographic or involved terrorism. So, no, Google definitely has done evil in this case. Stop trying to make excuses for them.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[clkwork]

I agree that this is disturbing. Are there other search engines that don't block such images? Are they just as evil? How is noncompliance with the Chinese government's demands - resulting in a total shutdown of Chinese google as I understand it - better for the people?

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Anonymous Coward]

You're seeing this as Google is providing information to the chinese. That's true, but it's carefully chosen information. By the government.

Are you from the USA? If the Bush administration was choosing what you can read or not, would you be happy? You're still allowed to have access to the Bible, but NOT to Marx's books.

Some things have to be secret. Information about national security, the code to launch nuclear attacks. But restricted access to opinions is way different than this.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Jagasian]

Yes, other search engines have engaged in the same evil acts as Google. They are just as evil, but possible less so, considering that they never claimed to "do no evil".

The reason that everybody is upset right now is some of us, myself included, hoped that Google would be different. Now I realize that it was naive. Google is only motivated by profit. They are a publically traded company, it is what they are. However, it does not make it right. It does not justify their actions. Furthermore, their claim to "do no evil" conflicts with their actions. I would be very happy if in addition to opposing the Bush administration, Google also opposed the Chinese administration.

Google could have used technology to provide an uncensored Chinese search engine to the Chinese people. Using technology (anonymous proxying and networks such as The Onion Router) and aid from Western nations (laws forcing other Western search engines from censoring searches), Google could have accomplished this. But instead, they took the easy route for increasing short term profits.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Zackbass]

I was just playing around your search results and noticed something a little bit odd. First thing, why would you search Chinese Google with english search terms? I ran it through Systran and tried the search again but with Chinese search terms. The results were different but not better. The odd thing is that if you use the same Chinese search terms with the uncensored Google you get nearly the same set of images as the Chinese Google. I expected results similar to when using the English search terms.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Jagasian]

Obviously when presented with Chinese language queries, Google throws them against a Chinese language index. Apparently the Chinese language index is the same one used for Chinese Google, which is censored. Why build large costly indexes in Chinese, if you are just going to censor the results obtained from throwing a search at them? My guess is when presented with English language queries to the Chinese Google, it throws them against the uncensored English index, but then filters the results before sending them to the client. This would explain the results that you obtained.

BTW, I used English language queries and Google Images because most Slashdotters do not know Chinese, but they do know English and they can view images. Hence it is a nice quick example to get the point across that something evil is being done.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Anonymous Coward]

foulon gong this is a copycat idea, not as visually stunning:

foulon gong (US)

foulon gong (CN)

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you from the USA? If the Bush administration was choosing what you can read or not, would you be happy? You're still allowed to have access to the Bible, but NOT to Marx's books.

Spoken like a black tongue liar Chinese govt shill. Marx's books are publicly available in the US, as is Adolf Hitler's diary and the ramblings of many other failed lunatics. Does this look like Slashdot.cn??? Save your lies for those your govt firewalled from the truth.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Anonymous Coward]

While a disclaimer is displayed saying that some results were blocked do to Chinese law, the disclaimer does not tell what kind of results were blocked.

Somehow, I think a disclaimer stating "results blocked due to displays of government oppression" wouldn't fly...

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[dustmite]

But Google hasn't blocked any of those Tiananmen Square massacre sites - there are plenty of other ways to access them still, given that the entire Web is full of billions of hyperlinks, and that there are thousands of other ways to publish URLs or spread them by word of mouth etc. Plus it's not as if as if the citizens had links to the massacre sites previously that they don't have now due to Google's filtering ... Google hasn't "removed" any links to the massacre sites, they have merely failed to add links from their site that anyway weren't there before at all!

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[jrumney]

It would be interesting to repeat the search using the equivalent Traditional Chinese characters in place of the Simplified Chinese used on the Mainland. I wonder if you might get different results then?

I did notice that if you change the hl=zh-CN in the URL to hl=en, you get redirected to the full google.com search, I wonder if it works that way inside the Great Firewall as well?

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[minkwe]

This is not unique to China, search images.google.se and images.google.com for "september 11" and see what you get.

Re:A pictorial demonstration of the evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof that Fox News is damaging to mental health.

Being inside gives Google power for change

[daBass]

In one way I agree with you. But information - even if some of it is filtered - is power. Selling arms to the chinese goverment is obviously bad. Giving it's citizens at least some access is better than depriving them completely because you don't like the goverment. If the people can't see beyond the curtain at least a little bit, they don't know what they are missing and what they should be protesting about. (see North Korea)

Besides, Google being Google, it would not surprise me at all that now that they are in and paying lucrative taxes to the Chinese goverment they will try to keep pushing the boundries. If the stayed outside and managed to avoid the filtering, the Chinese goverment could easily block them completely. Now they are on the inside, the goverment has something to lose.

except they do record all that...

[YesIAmAScript]

Did you consider that possibility?

Come on, this company keeps huge caches of a large percentage of the web page on the internet. You think they throw away the data that is generated within their own company?

I'm certain they don't.

So I think that without lying, they did what they could on this issue.

The Judge

[g00z]

Anybody know anything about this particular judge or any of his past rulings? If he's a Bush appointee I have to make a call to my bookie.

Re:The Judge

[a-singularity]

The Judge is faculty at Santa Clara University. It looks like George "Daddy" Bush appointed him.

"On October 1, 1990, Judge Ware was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, where he now serves"

http://www.scu.edu/law/faculty/adjunct/fcty_1231.h tml [scu.edu]

how do you get to #1?

[YesIAmAScript]

Your #1 supposes that if Google were to stop operations in China, Chinese would lose access to information. How is that again? Google indexes information, they don't make a ton of it. Additionally, it isn't like Google is the only useable internet search engine or even the first.

If Google were to stop operations in China, then people in China would have to use someone else to search. They wouldn't lose access to any data they had access to before. But Google would lose the ability to sell ads to Chinese customers...

My Thoughts...

[Pixelmixer]

• First of all, google is awesome from my point of view.. We needed some big financial power to speak out about what people have been complaining about for years. The US imposing its power on everyone... doing whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants to do it.
  
  
• Second, The google vs. china thing... As people have said before, it was either google be completely filtered itself from every single person in china (DRASTICALLY cutting its user base), OR they could comply.. keeping that ENTIRE user base, but only providing them 80% of the info, instead of 100%....
  
  
• Third, google vs US... IF the law was turned down, WHY must they go to extremes to back up their case. And IF they do need to back this up, then why cant they just ask google for statistics, instead of RAW Details. It would be so much more accurate because they could encorporate how many sites with pornographic data are reached via google with SAFE SEARCH enabled... How many kids know enough to turn off safe search on google? And if they're old enough to know how to turn it off, then they should be old enough to be responsible enough to recognize when they have come to a site that they're not looking for. Taking direct data from google doesnt incorporate the fact that there are filters in place already, it completely ignores that, and thats the what they're goal is... get the data, and who cares by what means we got it.
  
  
• Lastly, if the child porn act passed... how on earth would the enforce it? The US has practically no control over illegal activities online (probably bc they try to make everything illegal).
  
  
  This is pretty much just a rant, some probably doesnt make sense. If it doesnt, just dont comment on that, try to respond to what you understand, or what you think you understand, this way theres alot less misconceptions about what im saying.

Hehe...

[Alpha_Traveller]

"That's not a "Request" son! That's an Order!"

Google has won it's battle already!

[affinity]

Google may loose the court battle. However they have won over the public with their initial refusal. They have maintained their "Good Guy" status. Now if they do win then that is just gravy marketing-wise. Under the social issues, i can't speak as I'm not sure why the government wanted to the information they requested and i'm not sure what informtion was requested.

Re:Google has won it's battle already!

[Tyfud]

Except for when they lost their "Good Guy" status by giving in to China's demands for a filtered engine.

Dont bow down

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Google wont bow down and bend over. Stand up!

No retreat, no surrender!

Re:Yep, those bosses need all the help they can ge

[Anonymous Coward]

[Google have] been consistent: they do what's best for stockholder value

So they are now taking on the US government, which seems to go against what you are saying.

Do No Evil, Really

[camperslo]

I hope that those behind Google are really committed to doing no evil. Google has the potential to greatly impact our lives. It is up to them whether the influence is good or evil. Google appears to be acting inline with their "Do No Evil" behavior commitment in this case, but I have several other concerns.

1) Censorship - While they apparently have no choice but to cave into to the wishes of the Chinese government, I'm wondering if it goes beyond that. Could Google censorship be happening in the U.S. too? There's a wealth of info buried in Slashdot archives that I seem unable to find anymore when searching through Google. (try searching using our nicknames and keywords) Also, a story that I'd seen on the BBC website a while back seems to have been buried. The story was about something like 60 % of the Iraqi oil revenue, managed by the U.S. for reconstruction, being unaccounted for. I haven't been able to find the story again by searching the BBC site directly either. I never saw it covered in the U.S. media, which was preoccupied with Jury selection for Michael Jackson at the time.

2) Potential Target of Funds From Political Corruption - This one is a hot potato. The commercial media will barely mention it, because they are where the money is going. There is a great deal of attention right now over political corruption, with influence being bought. New laws won't stop illegal behavior, and politicians are generally not going to be very effective in making changes when it means cutting the funding that got many where they are. Media attention is focused on politicians getting dirty money, but doesn't address the issue of where it is being spent. Broadcast licensees in the U.S. are supposed to be acting as "trustees of the public interest", although that seems to be an old-school concept that is conveniently forgotten. If broadcasters would not accept ANY paid political advertising, instead only providing free and equal time for legally qualified candidates/measures, politicians would not have the huge incentive to sell their souls to finance campaign advertising.

Where does Google fit in? As advertising shifts from conventional media to the net, the potential for Google to become a primary destination of campaign funds is huge. I believe Google should "Do No Evil" and publiclly state they will never provide paid political advertising or boosted search ranking, and should make a public statement that it is also time for broadcasters to kill the incentive for corruption by also refusing paid political ads.
Over time, advertising on Google could be even more insidious than television and radio broadcasting, because it is better able to selectively target tuned messages for different segments of the population. Essentially politicians would be able to tell each demographic only the things they want to hear.

Sometimes "Stuff That Matters" isn't new news. Like the toad swimming the the pot on the stove and not feeling the temperature rise, or the person looking through tinted glasses with eyes that have normalized for the color bias, issues that have developed over time often don't stand out. Some serious issues don't get nearly enough attention. Perhaps we can get Google to help with this one before they become part of the problem.
It'll take all of us working to bring about change. The commercial media aren't likely to help when it means turning away cash cows. It is up to us pressure the media, our representatives, and the F.C.C. to eliminate paid political advertising.

Re:Do No Evil, Really

[Rovent]

> Could Google censorship be happening in the U.S. too?

Yes.

And yes, Chinese regulations will require us to remove some sensitive information from our search results. When we do so, we'll disclose this to users, just as we already do in those rare instances where we alter results in order to comply with local laws in France, Germany and the U.S.

their blog

What Can We Do?

[Yolegoman]

I hate to see authority being abused as it is being abused right now. However, I'm unsure who I need to contact to tell them I do not want them to have access to Google's search records, for the sake of the children or not.

Does anyone know what I, the concerned citizen, can and should do?

Yes! and Yes!

[wsanders]

>>>> So it's not about a law at all, it's about the governments attempt to show the need for a law.

This post is one of the few to point this out. This is just a fishing expedition to provide data for - something. God knows what. Maybe the next step - lets go to one random residential neighborhood in Anytown USA and sieze all the computers. Who knows what we'll find! We promise not to arrest anyone - this time!

Aside from the privacy concerns, what business wants to be obliged to respond to random government requests for information, outside of that is already required by law and good business practices?

BTW Almost certainly the info Google might be forced to provide contains no identifiable information, so you can take your tinfoil hats off. Yahoo and AOL already complied, and aggregated the data and removed individually identifying information. Microsoft, good little quislings they are, had no comment.

How Far Can The Government Go?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not an issue about searching for evidence in a crime under investigation.

This is a Civil lawsuit, where the government is trying to prove that a lot of people spend a lot of time searching for porn, so their restriction on freedom of speech should be allowed, in order to control the internet.

So, they want Google to show them what a typical week of searches is like. Google says (rightly, in my opinion) "you can ask, but you have no basis to demand. We have the right to say NO". So they're contesting the subpoena.

If A has a lawsuit going with B, do they have the right then to fish into totally unrelated material from parties C or D to prove their point? Pretend Burger King is suing McDonalds because their prices are mercenary and anticompetitive, can they force Wendys and Hardees to open their accounting books just to show the court what the typical burger business is like? I think not. Why should the government be any different?

Let the government collect their own statistics. If the government wants to spend a few million collecting a list of porn sites and statistics, then that's their and the taxpayers' business. If they want to hire Google as an expert witness, then Google can price their stats at what they think they're work and write a report for the government.

And Don't Forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget, if the government suceeds in imposing their law, Google is one of the companies that will have to shell out big bucks, modify their main business, to ensure that they comply with the government's law.

  Also, when you click on "cached", you're getting the page from Google. If they serve an inappropriate page to a minor, they'd be breaking the law. So they would either have to set up their own filtering system, or abandon the cache option. I bet the law doesn't excuse accidentally serving cached just because the original site didn't classify it correctly.

A foreign web site couldn't give a hoot(er) about the law, so what's Google to do? Only return American, content-classified web sites unless you can prove you're an adult?

I see nothing but headaches. So, I'm sure, does Google.

Re:And Don't Forget...

[daveb]

what's Google to do? Only return American, content-classified web sites unless you can prove you're an adult?

Yup - and Googles quite happy to do that (ie obey the local laws on censorship). of course the only workable solution would be to ban porn as you can't be certain of the clients age. compulsory "safe search" for the US perhaps?

Re:Yep, those bosses need all the help they can ge

[ChaosDiscord]

Christ, there are valid reasons to criticize Google (the China thing is pretty bad), but you're verging on making crap up.

" removing content, from Google News sources ": Google's always had a policy of not indexing things people don't want indexed. That's not evil, that's polite. Agence France Presse is shooting itself in the foot by not being indexed by Google News, but hey, that's their point.

" Google Print caving in to publishers legal threats ": Did you read the article. This is temporary. Google is continuing to fight for the right to index books in the courts. Having to wait until the court case is finished is annoying, but is hardly Google actively being evil.

" DMCA complaints ": Google's just obeying the law. The law is bad. To try and show that the law is bad, Google is working with Chilling Effects to document the cases, specifically provides links to the takedown notices with contain the links in question. Maybe it would better if Google were to break the law, but I'm hard pressed to call someone attempting to protest a bad law to the extent possible "evil." At worst they've simply failed to be as good as they could be.

Dear Government,

[bmalia]

With the the release of Googles search records, I have reviewed some of my search history and felt some of my searches could be taken the wrong way and would like to take this chance to clarify...

'child porn' - was doing research for a college essay paper.
'Olson Twins' - I wanted to see if they were releasing any new movies
'how to build a bomb' - was a typo. I wanted to know how egyptions built their tomb's
'miserable failure' - How did that one get in there?
'preteen amature fuck daddy child molesting whore slut kiddie screw young tits who suck big cock' - I read this article on slashdot..and wanted to see if you'd actually come knocking on my door.

Re:fuckedgoogle says you guys are full of it

[Daemongar]

It's AMAZING how much /.'s collective heads are up Googles asses. Have they done that much good for anyone in particular that everyone should not even ask questions? It appears people are just defending Google accross the board and moderating anything seen as "anti-google" as flamebait.

Causes of Flamebait:
* Why is Google keeping this information?
* On what grounds is Google fighting the Government and does their position hold water?
* Do web users have a "right to privacy" when searching on the net/submitting information to a private company?

None of these questions are being answered, just knee-jerk bullshit and karma-whores. These daily Google stories are getting stale and repetitive, the same thing over and over. Attack GWB, DoJ, etc with 0% informative content.

Chuck Norris...

[Ice Wewe]

Google just needs to hire Chuck Norris to take care of the problem. Once the Government finds out that Google is being represented by someone who punches papers till they fuse together, instead of using a paper clip, I'm sure they'll drop the charges.

In the court room:

Govn't Lawyer: Chuck Norris cannot deture our desire to get google's logs.

Enter Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris: I'm here!

Govn't Lawyer: Chuck Norris, you cannot intimidate us! We're the US Government!

Chuck Norris: Hey, nice briefcase you've got there, can I see it for a minute?

Govn't Lawyer: Well I don't see any problem with that, here you go. *Passes briefcase to Chuck Norris*

Chuck Norris: Hey, thanks. *Flattens briefcase into a pancake with his pinky finger*

Govn't Lawyer: *Narrows eyes* You're paying for that!

Chuck Norris: Only if you drop the case against google, or, feel the power of my mighty fist!

Govn't Lawyer: No, we wont drop the case.

Judge: Ok, I've seen enough. *bangs gavel* Case dismissed.

Govn't Lawyer: *Gaping mouth*

Chuck Norris: You might wanna pick that up off the floor on your way out.

End of story

perhaps the difference is in the laws

[FlippyTheSkillsaw]

In China, if Google doesn't comply, they will just be blocked. There is no court that can say that Google is right, and even if they could it wouldn't be heard.

In the US, the government has made a ridiculous request based on research data. Google is supposed to hand over data just because the government told them to, without any laws backing it. Let me tell you, Google better win this one.

I'm still way in Google's corner on all these issues. For Google to even be considered okay for China in the filtered state, I imagine that they must have some really smooth talking diplomats.

Stars and Strips and Stripped of Rights! Part 2

[Bushido Hacks]

Dear American Government,
GTFO my internets!
Sincerely,
The American People.

Control the Airwaves!
Fuel the the reaction!
Use Every weapon of mass-distraction
Turn active people in to passive consumers
Feed 'em bogus polls and harebrainded rumors!

Cut back civil rights
Make no mistake
Tell 'em homeland security is now at stake!
Whip up a frenzy keep 'em suspended
DON'T LET THEM KNOW THAT THEIR LIBERTY'S ENDED!

--Stars & Stripes by KMFDM

waking up eh?

[daveb]

I am not even close to being a privacy advocate, in fact I usually am on the side of the government in issues like these.

You remind me of the famous quote by someone called Martin Niemoller:

"First they come for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. And then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. And then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me."

Perhaps it's time to become a privacy activist.

Re:fuckedgoogle says you guys are full of it

[bmalia]

* Why is Google keeping this information?
-Because it's theirs.

* On what grounds is Google fighting the Government and does their
position hold water?
-right to privacy.. and we'll see if it holds water in court soon enough.

* Do web users have a "right to privacy" when searching on the net/submitting information to a private company?
-Yes.

Anymore questions?

If Google looses, I think they should hand over printed hard copies of the data. "Here ya go!"

But when it comes down to it...

[AdamThirteenth]

I thought it was my responsibility as a parent to keep my kid from looking at porn, not the governments. I think that's a task I'd like to handle myself.

Civil liberties my arse...

[kruelio]

How ironic that Google's "Don't be evil" only applies to Americans and not Chinese. They're going to fight our government's request information on terrorist activities but they roll over and show their belly to the communist Chinese "government."

In the end, it's all about money. They're no different from Microsoft.

Re:Civil liberties my arse...

[Ash-Fox]

Why should the Chinese be deprived of a good search engine?

Good for them

[panic911]

This is one reason why I have so much respect for Google. They have respect for their users - they HAVE to have respect for their users otherwise they wouldn't have any users. Good for them. I'll continue using google as long as they continue protecting my privacy.

American^WUS government apologists

[cortana]

I'm sure I remember lots of comments saying that the US government merely >requested this data from Google... why has it suddenly turned into a court case?

Google = Axis of Evil

[tekrat]

Let's say Google wins the case. All the government has to do is declare Google to be helping terrorism, and then, under the PATRIOT act, can just seize everything and get whatever they want anyhow.

Come on people. It's not like we're living in a democracy or something. All someone has to do is link the words "Google" and "Terrorism" and public opinion will turn on Google in an instant.

We're not a particularly smart country and most citizens seem very willing to give up essential liberties for temporary (false) security.

The government has been very bad about providing actual security (witness the open border between the US and Mexico, where any terrorist can walk through an air conditioned tunnel to get into the US), so, the US makes noises about security and rattles the sabre, but in the end, it's all about politicians keeping their power because power is money.

The point is: Google can't win. Even if they win, they will lose, because this administration isn't looking out for us -- as usual, it's more interested in special-interest groups, and corporations.

No Thank you to violating my 4th amendment rights.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government may request a favor.

Google said, 'No, thank you for asking.'

The government has no right, power, or law to force google to do anything for them for free.

Google's logs should be protected by their right to be 'secure in their person and papers':

U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment

Fourth Amendment - Search and Seizure

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Google is not under investigation.
Google did not break any laws regarding search engines.
Google does not have to give the government its business trade secrets.
No matter how many moles in Washington D.C. want to get their grubby little hands on it.