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Google's Response to the DoJ Motion
neoviky writes "Google Inc. on Friday formally rejected the U.S. Justice Department's subpoena of data from the Web search leader, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users' Web searches and its own trade secrets.
Responding to a motion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose Web search data was impractical."
So the government goes after Google- what about others like Microsoft? Or is this The Evil One's plan- the government is their largest contract. Hmmm
If Google hasn't done anything wrong ... then they shouldn't have to comply. Good job google.
The only way they should get the data is if Google volunteers to give it.
What's the government thinking anyways? If they just tapped on Microsoft's shoulder I'm sure Bill would hand over all of MSNs search data.
An article about it. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3 578821
Someone save me from this sanity.
The world is going in a direction where a lot of lawsuits and such are really "fishing expeditions" to you create overly broad subpoenas and then hope to find something in the material to back you view.
Google states that the data being requested has no relevance to what the government (specifically, the government-hired researches) wants to prove.
Interestingly, they (the government) could just come around and request more specific data which would be relevant.
But luckily their upcoming product, GoogleGoogle, will be soon entering a two year beta program and the DoJ is welcome to send an SMS to register their interest in testing it out.
I am amazed that people do not see Google's action for what it is -- a huge and hugely inexpensive public relations stunt. From a legal standpoint, Google does not have much ground to stand on. Yahoo and Microsoft realized this and that is why they complied. However, from a public relations point of view, it costs Google a small handful of hours of legal time and in return, Google gets featured on Slashdot and the countries newspapers, television and radio outlets, in addition to all over the internet numerous times. In the vast majority of cases, Google will be featured as the do-gooder ("do no evil") standing up to the U.S. Government on the public's behalf meanwhile making its competitors (Yahoo and Microsoft) look bad in the public eye.
In the end, expect Google to comply with the DOJ's request but only after getting all the (almost) free publicity it can from this. I hope that there are some writers of marketing and public relations books paying attention to this stunt because this has got to be one of the best (and least expensive) public relations coups in recent history.
Back when I was in school several Google recruiters came and during the presentation were more than willing to demonstrate technology that allows you to see what others had been searching.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
If the wrong people have their way, all internet connections will have to be licensed. You will have to have a chip embedded in you so they can immediately identify who is doing what on the internet. They will call it trusted computing. The wrong people might not be the government though. It might be Google and Microsoft.
I have a vision of small groups of criminals illegally tapping into the internet in railway yards huddled around steel barrels filled with burning garbage trying to keep warm. Totally distopian.
There should be a limit on the amount of information ANYONE can collect about you; not just the DOJ.
Link to the blogger post, that's the article, and THEN the pdf! Thank you!
(karmawhoring)
Here's a portion of the introduction:
Google users trust that when they enter a search query into a Google search box, not only will they receive back the most relevant results, but that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason. The Government's demand for disclosure of untold millions of search queries submitted by Google users and for production of a million Web page addresses or "URLs" randomly selected from Google's proprietary index would undermine that trust, unnecessarily burden Google, and do nothing to further the Government's case in the underlying action.
Fortunately, the Court has multiple, independent bases to reject the Government's Motion. First, the Government's presentation falls woefully short of demonstrating that the requested information will lead to admissible evidence. This burden is unquestionably the Government's. Rather than meet it, the Government concedes that Google's search queries and URLs are not evidence to be used at trial at all. Instead, the Government says, the data will be "useful" to its purported expert in developing some theory to support the Government's notion that a law banning materials that are harmful to minors on the Internet will be more effective than a technology filter in eliminating it.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
If Gonzales can simply refuse to answer questions on the legality of domestic searches when he goes before Congress, then Google can refuse spurious warrants from Gonzales. The DOJ doesn't have a right to simply request any information for any reason, and its good that Google are fighting what seems to be a political thing rather than a law enforcement request.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They just need to make it clear that it would be a violation of the DMCA for the DoJ to look at this stuff!
Stop! Dremel time!
Or am I just cynikal?
From what I understand, the government asked for web search strings alone. No identifying information at all.
Google claims to be fighting the good fight of protecting their users' data, but how different is the data that the government wants, from the data the Google itself uses to comprise the various lists of most popular searches, the 'popular topics' are in news.google.com, etc? I'm not sure that I'd like my search to be part of such a public display. Is Google's users' data being user improperly in that case, too?
The way I see it is that Google is simply grandstanding. There have been some voices recently that Google has been getting too powerfull and encompassing. They have your email, they know what you search for, and they search your entire hard drive and call back home with their toolbar.
From what I understand, the government asked them for similar search data, with no identifying information, for their own statystical analysis. Is this Google's chance to get back to the good graces of the Internet's geeks, stick to their missions to "do no evil" and retain their image of the anti-corporation, the underdog, and the rebel, while trying to get back to their $150 billion market cap?
The funniest part of TFS follows:
n /etc/links.html contains the word "porn" but
"The Government, of course, has told the Court none of this. Instead, it relies on a
talismanic incantation that the standard of relevance is met 'so long as [the request] is reasonably
calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.'"
Talismanic incantion! LOL!
Google's lawyers appear to be a good job refuting the Government's "expert":
"The court should view the Cutts Declaration as standing in strong contrast to the
Government's declarant, Professor Phillip Stark, a statistician who apparently has been hired to
produce a study to support the Government's contentions. The Stark Declaration is vague,
cursory, and uninformed about the operation of Google's search engine. In any event, Professor
Stark's opinion ought to be viewed with some scrutiny. Although positioned as the Government's
expert, he has not yet been qualified as a reliable expert by the Pennsylvania court trying the
underlying case pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 or Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms.,
Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). The Pennsylvania court has thus not yet determined whether Professor
Stark's testimony is reliable and of any assistance to the trier of fact."
And I'd have to side with Google on this. I'd venture to guess that most of google's data is completely irrelevant when taken out of context, which Stark is trying to do. If Google does have to turn the data over, I wouldn't be suprised if Stark tried to strongarm his way into learning Google's methods, algorithms, etc.
Another good argument is the following:
"In addition, the Government will not be able to ascertain the content of a Web page from
its descriptive URL name. A Web site's name that suggests potential harmful material may be
benign. Conversely, a URL that seems innocent may actually return pornographic material. The
classic example is www.whitehouse.com, which was a pornography site. Here, the adage "you
can't judge a book by its cover" applies. A URL such as
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/prontline/shows/por
actually provides links to anti-pornography organizations."
and all these years ive been thinking google was the goverment
Half the world is composed of idiots the other half are people just smart enough to take indecent advantage of them
The US Government is being too direct. They have (relatively) good relations with China. If they got the Chinese to demand the information for them, they'd have it by now.
I'll go take a walk now in the hopes of reducing my Google cynicism...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
When you or I have the power and authority of the DOJ, then come back to me with your incredibly poor analogy. Maybe it'll hold water then.
From the legal document;
...
...
but that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason.
If Google is forced to compromise its privacy principles
The privacy and anonymity of the service are major factors in the attraction of users - that is, users trust Google to do right by their personal information and to provide them with the best search results.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
For google, a core part of their PR strategy is 'do no evil', and therefore any opportunity to grandstand in a way that appears to comply with this core promise is gold for Google.
The other sites don't have that as a PR strategy at the moment. Therefore, they would perceive little to no value compared to their costs.
Of course, it does sound good to stand up to the government lately with all the negative trends against privacy going on, but as many have pointed out, google themselves is using the data in ways not that much different from the government plans, so it isn't 100% as good as they like everyone to think...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
However, with China, Google has three choices: 1) don't do business in China, 2) fight it and delay business in China, 3) comply but fight it and do a minimalist job at it.
1 and 2 are suicide as China is a VERY large, growing market. Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. would have loved for Google to stay out, hence they could get a very large market share. By doing 3, Google gets press (some good, a lot bad), but they get to play in China. They also are really raising the level of discussion about the censorship in China which is a VERY GOOD THING. Through the press and awareness of the problem, Google is Doing the right thing, unlike Microsoft, Yahoo, etc.
Very clever PR on Google's side... they obviously don't really care about law (especially copyright law), but if they can keep their base happy, it'll fool enough investors so they don't get hit with anymore hundred-million dollar loss days.
... or they will ask next for the logs of the Google Web Accelerator.
Google specifically states that they will use their information for their own internal purposes to improve searches and such. They specifically state that they will not hand out that information to 3rd party. The government is 3rd party.
Everyones complaining about googles hypocracy needs to get off their silly "they are a company now and like all companies have to be selfish and everything they do is public facing deception only". Get real. I'm by no means claiming they are protectors of the smaller people but they have done NOTHING wrong or hypocritical at all. In fact they are holding up their end of the promise they made to the smaller people.
Google specifically states that they will use their information for their own internal purposes to improve searches and such. They specifically state that they will not hand out that information to 3rd party. The government is 3rd party.
Everyones complaining about googles hypocracy needs to get off their silly "they are a company now and like all companies have to be selfish and everything they do is public facing deception only".
I'm by no means claiming they are protectors of the smaller people but they have done NOTHING wrong or hypocritical at all. In fact they are holding up their end of the promise they made to the smaller people.
Some public relations stunt. It caused their net-worth to drop billions this quarter. If I were an investor, I'd say try something else.
...this is a government fishing expedition, and it's not even fishing for crime, it's fishing for data from which they suppose they might be able to theorize harm, and legislate a new crime.
In reality, they just want to believe that harm is somehow being done. They aren't after evidence or scientific proof. They're after data that can be munged to confirm their biases and those of their constituents.
For the record: in my own opinion images of sex, even wild and kinky sex, do not harm kids - and probably don't even much interest them except for snigger-value. All this fuss is saying much more about the repressed prurience of the more nutty kind of "cultural conservative" than about any scientific reality.
...impracticality is the current administration's way of life. Witness Iraq, the "War on Terra", even the most recent debacle of the Veep's shooting victim apologizing to HIM. Google better play dirty on this one since the current admin and all the neocons play that way.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
... Google ... were more than willing to demonstrate technology that allows you to see what others had been searching.
Google Suggest does this. It's a good feature.
There is a huge difference between showing anonymous search statistics in order to aid the end-user and handing over personally identifiable private information to corrupt individuals. Although you could argue that the politicians think they are only doing what is in the public's best interest. I'm glad Google disagrees.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Or are they saving that for the eventual appeal to the Supreme Court?
"Article 4. 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."
Is this because Google, being a corporation, is not regarded as a Person? Certainly the "papers and effects" portion would apply to those citizens whose data Google houses.
Or is it being stipulated that the data in Google's keeping has no portion of ownership by the people? Or that "my" Gmail is not really mine, or that "my" search histories have no relation to me, that they would not constitute "my papers"?
Perhaps this is an area into which Google does not wish to venture.
IANAL, but this seems pretty cut & dried to me.
Will someone (who IS a lawyer, please) point out the error in my thinking?
Page 11 (OTFPDF) - "In addition to bot queries, an individual may run hundreds of queries .... Some users have deliberately sent pornography queries to Google in response to the Government's subpoena. One striking example is that of an individual who wrote a feature for the Firefox (Mozilla) web browser that will send random pornoggraphy query to Google"
Can I get a url to this new "feature" please?
Maybe google is just stalling till they can get enough paper to print out all the google cashes on porn they have.
"arguing the demand violated the privacy of users' Web searches and its own trade secrets."
seriously? I'm kissing the search history feature goodbye... Their only real defense is that there was no crime commited here.
If you were an investor, I'd say shut the hell up. You have no say in the matter. The interests of the employees, the customers, and the community come before yours.
is why the DoJ thinks they have a legal right to access Google's information/logs?
Do they have any credible evidence that Google broke the law? Or that a particular user broke the law? If so, they they should subpoena an individual users records.
It seems to me that the DoJ merely wants Google information because they want to go on a "fishing expedition". Google should have no obligation to assist the DoJ in a "fishing expedition".
The DOJ on "information and belief" have some theories apparently. Just because Google has information that may or may not disprove their theory, no one should compel Google to turn over that information. It's up the the DoJ to get their own information if they believe such. If they don't have their own independent source from which to obtain it, then too bad.
Beat them up for Giving for blocking Info for the Chinese but request information when no crime has been committed and that is ok. couldn't they at least time these things so they are far enough appart so that they do appear so stupid?
What evidence do you have that this "PR Stunt" was the primary cause of the stock to drop? If you actually knew, you could make a killing on the stock market, as nobody has figured out how to predict the exact causes of why stocks go up and down 100% of the time.
This is, of course, presuming that the above comment isn't a joke. I don't know, maybe the parent was scared of using Google to search for the whole phrase?
The response letter said the DOJ wanted a list of every URL that could be returned by a search query in the Google database. I can't even imagine how much data that is. I'd comply with that bit, print it all out, and send the DOJ the bill...
Is it just me or does it sound like the DOJ had no idea what they were actually asking for?
// Dumps core here
The PDF refers to several declarations (by Cutts, Ramani, etc.). Any links to those?
The point is, that Gonzales put his loyalty to the President above his duty to answer the legislative branch. When he talks to law students and the press he claims the President is acting legally when he bypasses the FISA, when he talks to Congress he simply refuses to answer the question.
This is the same thing, he's acting as a politician with an agenda rather than as a enforcer of the law. Google are right to refuse to be dragged into what is simply a political lobbying exercise.
But there is a difference.
With the RIAA, a crime had been committed, and Yahoo was asking to not turn over information identifying the offenders (more or less, yes, this is simplified).
In this case, the government has *no* committed crime, and is not trying to track down any criminals. They are simply trying (or at least, this is their justification) to obtain Google's search data to support GOP initiatives to spread pornography filters based on the fact that N% of searches return pornography hits.
My take is that Google is completely in the right. The federal government has absolutely no right to that data, nor do I want them to be able to subpoena it.
As for not being identifiable, give me a break. You surf sites with ads served by people like Doubleclick and Google Ads. Google can match all past searches from your IP or from a machine with any cookies that they've set on your machine. This is not speculation -- they have specifically stated that they have this ability. It's a pretty good bet that a number of sites on the Web have your real name. Maybe it's not a drop-in "Google has a complete database", but it only takes Google + *one* other website you visit that has your personal name, and there's a damned comprehensive list of your thoughts, research, summary of what you're reading about and so forth available to the federal government.
I don't think that this is a very good thing.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
If they do win and google is forced to give over searches, I think the best action would be a campaign to put so much noise in those searches it would be pointless for them to even try. i.e. searching for things like killing the president and how jews invented tornados.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
And that warrants immediate and aggressive investigation.
Face it. If the government wants to know how much porn is on the internet, they can type "porn" into google and get the results in roughly 0.06 seconds, just like everyone else.
The real reason behind this attempt to strongarm private institutions warrants immediate and aggressive investigation.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The difference in intent is vast, the end of the year zeigest looks at overall patterns while disclosing NO personal information. It's tells us such trivia as the average American dumbass likes to do searches for Janet Jackson's breasts or whatever.
What the DOJ is looking to do is a whole other kettle of fish, linking together search queries to build dubious profiles of "terrorists."
For example if I search for "semi-automatic rifle" (which I have a second amendment right to own), falafel recipe, and Syria, does that make me a potential terrorist? It is just such dubious fishing expeditions that make it extremely important that the 4th amendment be vigorously protected if we are to remain a free society.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
You talk about protecting user privacy, but what the government is asking for does not ask for any identifying information. They want the search strings, and no information about WHO made those searches.
As for probable cause and a reason to get the information, if they have suspicion that Google is being used to search for information about and subsequently facilitate illegal acts they have a grounds. They have to prove that second part though as , at least in most cases, just having information about an illegal act isn't illegal (i.e. the Anarchist Cookbook). How can they do this? Simple:
"Google, we request a list of all search strings run through your search engine which have the following keywords in them: Child sex, homemade bomb, American jihad"
If that doesn't get them a sizable list I would scream they were editing things. Which would open up for them asking for a complete list to verify context of those searches, probably WITH identifying information.
Another angle would be the DoJ pushing to have internet search engines considered a public service, if they pull that off it's a free for all with the information. (see phone companies and ISP's that have to keep RADIUS logging logs correlating dial up ID to IP)
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
If you were an investor, I'd say shut the hell up. You have no say in the matter. The interests of the employees, the customers, and the community come before yours. Your lack of knowledge (or interest) in how the business world works is frightening.
Your lack of knowledge (or interest) in how the business world works is frightening.
It takes a lot of knowledge and interest to get to the point where you understand what children know.
The employees, customers, and community should always come first.
http://use.perl.org
Besides the fact that investors in Google have no voting shares.
Any responsible investor would read Google's prospectus, which makes it very clear how they intend to operate the company - and yes, they do intend to put their employees and customers first.
They aren't trying to find out anything about the Internet, they are trying to find out about how search engines are being used. I suspect they are also really interested in any descrepancies between that the internet monitoring logs show and googles records.
Competitive intelligence from data mining is only one concern, albeit it should be primary. Traffic from search engines could easily be used to mask more sinister activity by pretending to be from google by spoofing.
THere is a whole host of things about how search engines can be misused that make this a proper and valid line of inquiry for the government. I have only touched on a few things.
I have to admit, since search patterns are anonymous, I am confused as to why why you feel any concern over the goverment investigating them. If the government was interested in any group of people, however big, they would simply goto the ISP's for records of Internet activity. They do it all the time when investigating cases. They certainly wouldn't go to the expense and bother of upsetting a major US asset like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft when there are eaiser alternatives to obtaining that sort of information.
Because of that, I have to conclude that this is not about what individuals are searching, but about usage patterns.
I know exactly how it works: exactly the opposite of how it should.
The employees, customers, and community should always come first. Their interests should be taken to heart, especially if a business wants to succeed long term. Without employees, there can be no product. Without customers, there can be no sales. Without the community (and I'm assuming this is the community that are not customers or prospective customers), there can be no company itself. However, there are mandates (both contractual and legislative) that determine a publicly traded company's obligations towards each of these four groups. You have no right of privacy when it comes to dealing with Google. If they feel that the government is in the wrong and that they are right to fight, then fine. However, the original poster supposed that they know that they are going to lose, and this is a marketing ploy. The responder stated (properly) that this is costing the company billions, and if they aren't actually protecting the rights of customers, then there is no benefit to the company, and they are improperly endangering the money of their shareholders, with whom they do have an obligation that they would be violating. You claim that if he were an investor, he should "shut up". That's all well and good for you to think, but investors have real money involved, and Google has real obligations towards them. In the scenario described by the original poster, they would be in the wrong, plain and simple. You can think what you want, but you're not living in the real world. This was the concern with Google going public, and we're seeing it raise its head now.
-AD
The feds specifically asked that any identifiable information to be removed, and anonymous stats are already given away by Google.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
What happened to the thing about complying with laws?
... all the other US companies that do manufacturing there ... but we won't talk about that, otherwise you wouldn't be able to buy cheap goods here in the US), and in the second case they are preventing our own government from breaking US law.
As far as I can tell, that's exactly what they're doing in both cases.
They are complying with Chinese law in the first case (just like, oh, I don't know
- Brian Roach
You may want to take a look at this blog http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2006/01/20 /515606.aspx
to read about Microsoft's reluctant handing over of the search records. User information was scrubbed out, leaving a list of queries with a count of how often they occurred as well as a random set of indexed pages. What this means is that if you searched for "my name is jim smith and I live at XYZ and would like to see child pornography" that maybe you could be concerned. If you queried for "sex with children", your query will be counted as +1 with the 128 other people who searched for that term on day Z. If you searched for your social security number, telephone number etc... the government may have a record of that now...oohhhh scary.
That's all well and good for you to think, but investors have real money involved, and Google has real obligations towards them.
And that was my point. Why are your obligations to the actual people not real? To the community not real?
To rights. To privacy. To honest dealings.
Those are all just as real, yet the only obligation that is paramount is to the shareholders. Which is wrong.
http://use.perl.org
No. Their stock dropped because earnings were below forecasts, not because of this incident with the DoJ.
I seriously doubt that Google put up a fight when China asked for information on users... The only reason they do that in the US is a) it's legal to question government, b) sounds good for PR, and c) they still make money, even without the governemt. In China, however, user privacy means nothing, and to refuse compliance means no more Chinese money. Go Human Rights For The US of A, Down With Rights For China!
Firstly, most often the needs of investors, employees, and customers are in alignment. In this case, complying with the court order would aversely impact the business's bottom line, waste the employees' time, marginally drive customers away from a service they've otherwise been enjoying. The community is pretty much the collective of investors, employees, and customers, so it would appear that the community is adversely affected as well. Furthermore, many people participate in the community in multiple roles. There are plenty of employees invested in Google. There are plenty of customers invested in Google. There are employees of Google who also use their tools! There's plenty of moderation built into the system as a result of this, and also explicitly placed in the prospectus of Google shares (they're non-voting, after all). The question is, if Google has lost value because they're fighting subpoenas (probably a false premise) then what has been lost? The answer is not much. Most of that fall was on the basis of high expectations for Google, which they missed (but still grew by 80 percent).
There's also a much better argument to be had against the grandparent than "STFU" with an extreme amount of implied vitriol and hatred. If you hate the profit motive so much, why don't you go cry in a corner for a while about the oppresion of the proletariot and come back when you've got something constructive to share?
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Nope, the investor's interests trump all others, in fact it's illegal to serve any other interests ahead of the shareholders. Anything less is Socialism, pure and simple.
So, Google launches Google.cn to comply with Chinese censorship laws, but doesn't comply with with a US DoJ subpeona?
This is getting confusing.
They've still got all the same stuff, just investor's perceptions of them changed slightly. Stocks tend to swing wildly on brash news like this, then return to their default level.
On the other hand, if they actually did hand over all of their search data, people would lose faith in Google. People NEED their anonymity on the web... they don't want people to find out that they're searching for warez copies of Word, or pictures of Katie Holmes naked, or reading up on how Bush is evil, etc. Remember the row over Google's automatic searches of Gmail? Think of the reaction if Google search records were repeatedly handed over to the Government to read. If people can't trust Google's anonymity, they will look elsewhere for their search provider.
And if people are driven from Google in droves to other, smaller search providers, Google's stock will take a much bigger, much more permanent hit.
The ______ Agenda
They'll eveentually lose. Nice to see a little friction though.
(just like, oh, I don't know ... all the other US companies that do manufacturing there ... but we won't talk about that, otherwise you wouldn't be able to buy cheap goods here in the US)
Hrm. I'll take that option, as there are plenty of other non-slave labor countries (hint: the ones that rejected the EU constitution might be a good place to start, not the countries nearby to China). This would be an option for what cannot be done in the US - and I'd bet we'd even get better quality manufacturing for every EU/SA product that was previously made in China/TW.
Maybe it's time the rest of the world bites the bullet and not deal with this minority in Asia. It sure beats taking the same bullet, as well as making it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
China's social norms state that censorship is okay. There are people that don't like it, but they haven't managed to change those social norms yet. What Google did there may rile those people who live in a culture that has demanded different social norms.
The demand for data from the US government is totally different.
I have, an expectation and a Constitutionally-protected right to not be searched without probable cause. This is something that *our* social norms do include. A group of people in the Bush Administration wants to push for porn filters, and wants to get data about how many returned searches contain porn. There is no crime here. There is no reason whatsoever for Google to give up that data, and some damn good reason for them not to do so (their users want their data to be private, and Google probably doesn't want a prescedent of having to turn over data to anyone that asks).
There is no probable cause here, because there is no crime. It is unfortunate that the Gonzales-led DoJ is the one demanding the data. It confuses many people (including a number of people on Slashdot, clearly), because they think that the DoJ has some kind of right to arbitrarily demand data of people. No; the people working there have no more right to demand that data than any American citizen does, which is zero, except is some specifically-enumerated cases. That generally translates to crime or national security.
Government access to Google's search databases would be catastrophic, and the fact that a demand was even issued is reminiscent of the 1950s. We have a society designed to allow people to read, debate, and discuss things freely. It is *crucial* that the people currently in power not have the ability to prevent citizens from doing this, or they have the ability to quash dissenting ideas from forming. Government access to Google's search data would be truly appalling. It can be used as a blackmail tool ("Sir, how can you run for a district attorney? Did you or did you not search for gay porn on twenty different occasions?"). This is not a sky-is-falling scenario. We know that exactly this does happen when these powers are granted the federal government -- under Hoover, the FBI did exactly this to a number of different people. It can be used to quash the attempt to spread criticism of the government. It can be used to find out what the political opposition is planning.
And there are people *criticizing* Google for fighting this. On Slashdot, none the less. I'm absolutely stunned by this. The only explanation I can think of is that it's low-level trolling from SEO types (who seem to harbour an inexplicable dislike of Google -- if Google didn't make it hard to cheat the system, they wouldn't have jobs).
What kind of paint do you have to be inhaling to be bashing Google for doing this?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I am confused as to why why you feel any concern over the goverment investigating them
What is there to be confused about? The government has no authority and no real power to do this. There is no court case, no criminal proceedings, no valid ground to issue a subpoena at all. There's still no explanation of just what the government is really after here, and why they gotta have it so bad, they're straining the bounds of the legal process in order to get it. Why was yahoo and MSN's information not enough?
Well you know what? I am concerned. I'm concerned that the past 5 or so years has shown a steady decline in the behavior of our government. This has just been one in a long stream of abuses of power by a government led by people who outright refuse to answer to anyone, supported on the backs of people who just can't be bothered to give a shit. If they feel they have the right to seize information from people without so much as a warrant, much less a trial for it to be subpoenaed for, then who knows what they'll try next?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This is Starks declaration. He's the expert the government hired. His declaration seems a little 'stark' (hehe) on proving he needs this information. Remember, it's the government's burden to show they need these documents.
An important change for education.
Doesn't seem very confusing to me. Google is standing up for the rule of law as it currently applies in each of those two countries, respectively. I don't think the laws in China are things that should necessarily be supported, but the fact that there are different laws in the United States and China does not confuse me one bit. ;-)
No, it just means you're serious about defending your falafels. Mmm... falafels.
You dislike Google for their actions in China? How can I put this...
Do you support the Iraq war?
No?
I don't either.
Even if you buy into the official justification (I *think* that this is the current one) that we were trying to spread democracy, the war is still a bad idea. You can't "impose" social revolution on people -- they just get ticked off at foreigners coming in and trying to run stuff. They have to decide that they want change themselves.
Similarly, trying to force a revolution in China by trying to directly subvert what the government wants just isn't too likely to succeed. If the people in China become unhappy enough with their lot, they'll do something. Currently, the majority are happy enough with what is going on not to do anything.
What Google did in China was, IMHO, the correct thing to do.
What is going on here is the federal government blatantly attempting to overstep its constitutional limits.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
There is no subpeona, no court case, because this isn't a prosecution. These are regulatory actions pursuant to and authorized by various statutes.
,run by one of the other airlines, always brought up Braniff flights last, so Braniff sold less flights.
For example, elsewhere in this discussion, somepointed asked why the government might want every URL Google has in persistant store.
I know the answer to that one. In the early days of the internet, occssionally, protections against searchbots were left off for some military and government sites, resulting in classified information appearing in Google search results...and cache. It occasionally still happens, system administrators aren't all knowing, despite what they believe. The government just simply wants to know if that material is still in Google's caches. Do you believe the government doesn't have a right to ask if their security has been compromised?
Lets take some other examples. There used to be this airline called Braniff, that shared a reservation system with several other airlines. Braniff eventually went bankrupt, partially because the reservation system
We know that Google can alter listing order arbitrarily, they just did so, very publicly, for an large company they whose actions they disapproved of.
For the regulatory agencies protecting the integrity of America's financial markets, and for the governmenatal agencies concerned with economic warfare, this was the equivalent of Iran detonating a nuclear bomb.
There are absolutely no regulatory protections against Google doing the same to any corporation for any reason. What happens if say, a Chinese company decides it wants a bigger share of the market, and gets Google to start listing negative web pages about its competitors first?
Remember, China can offer immensely valuable concessions to access chinese markets to any company it approves of...the key word being approval. This isn't theoretical, it is known that they jailed the president of one middle sized American company until he signed over the company to them. It is also know that certain organizations that promote Chinese/American trade can arrange access to Chinese markets not even large corporations can get. What isn't known is the terms they are asking for offering those deals.
Or lets take stock market manipulation. Google arguable controls a fair amount of information the average consumer recieves. They could easily boost or lower a stock price simply by adjusting their page ranking algorithms...and buy or sell the associated stocks accordingly. You think the possiblity of cheating the small investor isn't something the government should keep a close eye on?
There are many more examples, but what it comes down to is this:
Search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, etc. are in the same class as NRSRO's and Comcast...organizations with immense power to affect the lives of all Americans.
It is the governments responsiblity and obligation to monitor such organizations before something bad happens. Would you rather have another Enron, a Parmalat, or any of a thousand other times goverment oversight was too little, too late?
I do understand your concern about privacy. What I dont understand is why you cannot believe that at least some part of the American Government actually cares about it's citizens, and is doing it's very best to protect them.
It's funny how the "law-makers" criticize Google/Yahoo for breaching the rights of its users in China one day while expecting the same to be done in the USA because it is in the public good.
On the other hand it's hypocritical of Google to act like the innocent babe in the woods when they accept similar government interference from counties like China as a "cost of doing business".
This would not be a legal-problem if either, handing user data was the "cost of doing business" in the US, or the US lawmakers applied their values of privacy and individual freedom universally.
the sig
... by the most inconvenient route imaginable.
:)
"Sure, you can have that data. We'll have a gentleman call you and dictate the data."
(which would, of course, be read my a full time employee of Google that just happened to have a wicked lisp and stutter.) "was that Sussex, Essex or Sex?"
I'm sure the law doesn't say under what terms data has to be surrendered
If you're hearing rhetoric about Linux, open source, or Mac and everyone's bashing Microsoft, you've found Slashdot.
What I dont understand is why you cannot believe that at least some part of the American Government actually cares about it's citizens, and is doing it's very best to protect them.
If the government has such honorable intentions, why must it lie to the public and claim it's trying to see how easy it is to find porn?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Woah, timeout! You seriously need to relax before it affects your health - go back to beating your wife or girlfriend. You'll feel a whole lot better.
"Some public relations stunt. It caused their net-worth to drop billions this quarter. If I were an investor, I'd say try something else."
How much would their share price drop if the general public found out that Google was leaking their personal information to the U.S. Governement?
As Google mentions in this filing, the trust of their users is very valuable to Google.
Man this crowd is nasty!
Google *adds* a local search service (google.cn) to the people of China that complies with local laws and censors it results, this service is somewhat more transparent than other search engines offerings in China as it actually shows *what was censored*. Not a whisper is heard about Yahoo and MSN's local services. Now all of a sudden Google is the new poster boy of *Evil, will sell mum for a buck*, what gives??
Do people actually know that this is an *added service* and that the exact same google.com that was available to the Chinese people before, that was behind 'The Great Firewall', slow and unresponsive and not accessible 10% of the time - is still available?
Does anyone know what the people of China (who are the ones affected) actually think of the new service? who finally have access to a fast, resourceful search service that we take for granted?
God dammit people we are complaining about a *FREE* service, that people can choose to use on their own accord. If it actually gets used it's because that it provides better experience than the google.com offering.
Since then anything good they do that benefits us all - fighting for our privacy, hell they even told AT&T and Verizon to stick their cyber extortion plan (which if enforced would benefit them in the long run), is overshadowed by one of their *FREE* services.
I don't know about the rest of you but I haven't paid *a cent* to Google yet use their services daily. (google.com, maps.google/Google Earth, Google Talk, Gmail, Google Groups, Google Desktop). For me they are still the same *Do no evil* company that existed when they only had one *FREE* service.
Some people need a hobby.
"Shareholders" is just another word for "owners". If you owned a business, website, whatever, wouldn't you feel that you should be the one to decide how to run it?
No. The people who work at the business, website, or whatever should be the ones who decide how to run it.
If polluting increases profit, the market dictates you pollute.
There isn't a week that goes by when there isn't some revelation that a company has broken the rules for a profit motive.
It happens every day, of every week, of every year. I see it in my own dealings as an employee.
Profit is the only goal. Every action concerns itself with profit, at the expense of whatever it happens to be.
It's not purposely to hurt us. It just doesn't matter that it does.
http://use.perl.org
I really do not understand about how finding porn relates, but perhaps if you understood how this situation came about, it woould help.
Congresspeople have a number of constituencies that are very anti PRC, multidenominational Christian Churches, for example. At the start of election season earlier this year, a group of Republican congresspeople went to China to meet with the Chinese leadership to "voice their concern" over suppression of speech, especially religious speech...the people their constituencies cared about.
It really was meant to be not much more than a photo op to placate their constituents, they would meet with Chinese leaders, make a statement, and go home. Harmless, in their eyes.
Unfortunately, they got snubbed by the Chinese leadership, only a low ranking member would even meet with them. Partially, it was a misunderstanding, the Chinese take photo ops a lot more seriously than Americans, and didn't realize it meant nothing.
It was't a "Mind you own business, great white father" (which would have been justified) as many believe, it was part of an internal chinese power struggle over how to handle the peasant revolution due in 2010.
However, getting between a Congresperson and their photo op is a vary bad mistake, and when they came back, they help hearings to make sure that at least the American companies heard them...and get another photo op. (Congresspeople pursue photo ops like Pepe Le Peu pursues cats)
However, the rest of the American government had to deal with the consequences of a major snub of the ruling party (If they had been democrats, it would have been different). Not a particularly small event in a city where there is no shortage of massive egos.
So at this point, the American government wants to make it clear to the Chinese government that you don't deal with American companies without dealing with American leadership, even if those companies are multinationals. The Chinese leadership have essentially told the State Department they are irrelevant, and thats not something that can be ignored.
More significantly, there is a growing suspicion that at least part of the problem is that the multinationals don't take the American government seriously either. Coupled with the growing realization of how much damage the search engine companies could do if left unsupervised, lead to the the recent spate of requests for various pieces of information about thier operations. All the American Government is trying to do is scope out the problem before it blows up in everyones faces.
If you think this is some sort of unnecessary alarmism, consider this. Eight years ago, something similar happened, and it got to the point where several European and Asian Governments were raiding multiple Americam companies in retaliation before the offending multinationals were forced to back down and make restitution. In part, at least, that incident is what lead to the much greater interventionism by the American government of the late 90's and 2000's
I think google should comply and hand it over. Howver they should print it. On paper. With hard to OCR font http://mail.python.org/pipermail/image-sig/2004-Ap ril/002689.html
I hate people that dont have a sig
On the one hand, there's this Google in China thing. Totally caved to the Chinese government's demands. In the name of getting a buck. But then they try to take the moralistic high ground with the US government. Which is it? I don't want the US government poking in any of my gmail or searches or anything. But then my idealistic side kicks in thinks "hey, why should I be on Google's side in one case and not the other."
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
Well, in that case I guess Worldcom and Enron are prime examples of well-run modern corporations.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
What really worries me is that Google certainly appears like it has something to hide, the other organizations subpeonaed yield up the information without hesitation.
What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Just because they refuse to give up information does not mean they have something to hide. This type of thinking will lead society into a more "guilty until proven innocent" mindset, and I fear that is a very dangerous path to be heading down.
When I first heard this news, I wanted Google to rip DOJ's idiotic request to shreds. Thankfully, they did just that in this case. The best part is:
"There is no showing of necessity because there is no explanation of the study itself or how a sampling of data proves any fact reliably."
Three cheers for Google! Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray!
Exactly. I am a socialist. (Watch the capitalization.)
The employees, customers, and community should always come first.
I agree with you 100%. Unfortunatly, that's not how the real world works.
Life is not for the lazy.
It's an effective publicity stunt that convinced many people who understand nothing about how the stock market works that they made some kind of sacrifice.
Their stock dropping had nothing to do with this. Their stock dropped because several analysts lowered their profit projections and basically said that their stock was overhyped.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Investors can get their say by selling their shares, which apparently they did.
The interests of the employees, the customers, and the community come before yours.
The interests of shareholders are not so independent from those of employees, customers and commuinity. First of all, many employees, customers and community members are also investors. Some poor guy working three minimum wage jobs could be an investor. Investors want to make money. That's the definition of investment. Seems to me, the best way to make money is to make customers happy.
> Ingle \In"gle\, n. [derived from Angel]
> A paramour; a favourite; a sweetheart;
So a slashdotter would not normally say "No hablo Ingle", as that doesn't make sense. A slashdotter would say, "No tengo Ingle", "I don't have a paramour, a sweetheart."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
So you're saying that you wanted Google to hand over its search data?
I wonder if the government knows exactly what it is looking for? Consider that the NSA data mining program has "slopped over the edge" a bit and the government already has some stuff of interest. They would not be able to use this material as it has been obtained illegally. However, if they innocently and legally obtained the same material with their requests, they could then persue legal action.
Most people can't read between the lines on this issue. The truth is much more simple. The U.S. government wants control of the internet. That means they need to get control and leverage over big search engines. How do you get control of search engines that are abiding by U.S. law. Simple, draft laws that they are not abiding by. Currently Sen. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) is drafting legislation that will put search engines in hot water. This is all orchestrated so that the government can get leverage over the search industry. Let's also get one thing straight. Since when has the government cared what U.S. companies are doing in China? And why just Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft search? There are dozens of Fortune 500 companies that have been conforming to Chinese regulations for years. What about them? Conclusion: Google and other search engines will lose this fight and evenutually be forced to hand over key information about how they operate. Once the government has reverse engineered search ranking algorithims, they will be able to manipulate search results at their pleasure. People will then see the results that the U.S. government wants them to see. Welcome to the new world order that is controled so that people never know the truth. Don't believe me? Read all about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm
I would agree. Just simply because you stand by your rights does not mean you are automatically guilty...or even that you are suspect.
On the other hand, when did I say that was even one of the reasons why I thought Google appeared like it had something to hide?
I also never said Google was guilty of anything, so there never was a presumption of guilt. What I said was there was an appearance. And, for the record, I don't think Google is guilty of anything, but I do think there is quite a bit of information in Googles files that is relevant to the missions of the government agencies involved and do NOT violate any aspects of the social contracts involved.
For the past few days, I have been watching the Katrina hearings on CSPAN, and the horrifying way the government has failed the survivors...and the reasons why.
For the most part, it was because the rules the governmental agencies operate under were never designed to cope with a disaster of Katrina's extent... and civil service is about following the rules.
It can't be any other way; the American government is too vast, too complicated for running things "ad hoc". For the most part, civil servants understand this, and try to do their best in spite of it.
Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, and sometimes the system doesn't work. Maybe it just fails, in the case of Katrina, or it gets abused, as in the case of Abramhoff, or Richard Jewell.
And often, but not always, the system has checks and balances to correct itself. Checks and balances are a GOOD thing.
But an unspoken assumption that the government is always the enemy, even when the system is failing, is not a check or balance, it's a mistake.
You see, like it or not, if you enjoy the vast protections on rights that citizenship in America provides, you also assume some obligations. One of those obligations is that the same government that protects your rights and privileges, also occasionally has to investigate potential violations, and you are obligated to cooperate, at least within the limits of the social contract that applies.
Look, the reasons you need for investigating are far less than the reasons you need for prosecuting, and less than the reasons you need for presumption of guilt. An investigation does not always result in conviction; sometimes it results in proving innocence.
On the other hand, failing to investigate has often resulted in serious harm, such as 9/11, or a thousand other cases. That's why the level of evidence needed for investigation is much lower than that needed for prosecuting.
Please try to understand that public service, or even election to public office, does not automatically turn someone into a insane, raving sociopath, despite what impressions watching CSPAN (or the Daily Show) might give. For the most part, the government is trying to do the best it can, even if it sometimes fails.
no their stock dropped due to kow-towing to China and it's demands for censorship ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
Yeah... that's one of the more insidious ways the robber barons have insulated themselves against public outcry. The poor guy working three jobs is still dirt poor, but because of his insignificant little stock portfolio, he naively believes that what's good for big business is good for him.
I'm guessing its something that 'an invididual inside google' wrote 'coz I can't find the damned thing anywhere.
If Google is going to retain all this information for data mining, why is it that the federal government can't use it for a potential investigation. Google can think it is above the law, but in the end, it will do nothing but hurt them.