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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."
... they can't just dredge up a cache of Johnny Cochran.
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?
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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.
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
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.
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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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.
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!
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.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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.
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.
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.
>>>> 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.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"