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Google Sued for Allegedly Profiting From Child Porn
skinfaxi writes "Filed in New York, Jeffrey Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links." From the article: "The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial. It also accuses Google of violating federal statutes relating to child pornography and calls for the court to order that Google cease "advertising, promoting, or distributing" child pornography through its site or otherwise providing any links to such content."
The ads typically reflect the sites that show up in your search.
"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
The difference being that China is a Communist state, while the United States is a Republic. In China, the government makes and breaks the rules at will, so when they tell Google "ban searches for 'X' or else," Google complies. In the US, legislation is required to ban something and it has to meet the "rigorous" standards of law. See below.
A Google representative said Friday that the company prohibits child pornography in its products and removes all such content whenever the company finds or is made aware of it. "We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography," spokesman Steve Langdon said in an e-mail interview.
Langdon pointed to the content policy for Google's AdWords sponsored links service, which broadly prohibits "promotion of child pornography or other non-consensual material." Langdon also noted that Google offers a filtering tool called SafeSearch that aims to block offensive content in search results.
The availability of such tools could mean that the suit may not go far. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects providers and users of an "interactive computer service" from liability if it can be shown that they took good faith to restrict access to obscene material. It also provides that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
So, in the end, while their cause is just and I think all of us can agree that child pornography is an abomination, the fact is that laws have been passed stating the circumstances required for a company to avoid being charged with a crime for promoting child pornography, and Google is complying. Whether you agree with how the law is worded is a separate issue. This is a lot of wasted time and effort. Hopefully this lawsuit will be struck down and the anti-child-porn people can get back to helping children who are victims of this and hunting down the assholes who make it available and do these despicable things.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Unsurprisingly this line appears in the article:
The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial.
However, there is no mention of who would be getting the money. So this makes me more inclined to think that it is not "for the children" but rather "for the money".
Do you really want the gov't to decide what results Google or any of the other engines can return?
insert sig here
Does anyone else find it ironic that this law firm exploits our natural instinct to protect children to try to make a money grab from Google? So who's exploiting who here? It seems like google does all it can to try to remove and filter out any type of child porn here, so how can they be liable?
"My name is Jeffrey Toback, and I care about your children. Vote for me this November."
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
"Toback, self-described as "not the most computer-literate guy," said he learned of the filter three days ago. He said he didn't know if the computers in his home have commercial filtering software that blocks pornography and other material unsuitable for children.
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Toback said a lawsuit was his only alternative because Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., is beyond the legislature's control. Toback, a father of three children, ages 15, 13 and 9, filed the lawsuit as a private citizen with no county funds."
He didn't even investigate if there was a filter in google already.
He didn't investigate his own computer even *having* filtering software.
He didn't investigate using filtering software.
He didn't think that he might, i don't know, watch where his kids go on the web.
Go go gadget out sourced parenting.
(From: http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzgoog0505,0,2
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
I wish these people would quit trying to protect everyone else's children and stick to worrying about their own.
-- Old Man Kensey
Yea right Billions.
So Google has made more from Child Porn alone than it's actual net yearly income?
What rubbish.
"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
spurious and pointless as this lawsuit may be, i find it interesting that in the same sentence he faults google for blocking search terms and not blocking search terms. no, i'm not advocating child pornography or think that it shouldn't be blocked, i'm just saying people should really pick an agenda and stick with it. oh, but wait, this is america where politicians can say three things and do a fourth.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links."
Google's 2004 revenue was $3.19b
Quarterly revenue by late 2005 was up to about $1.5b
So, at a rough estimate, Google's total lifetime revenue as a company is in the ~$10b range.
To have made "billions" in child porn related sponsored links, even if we assume all of Google's revenue is from sponsored links, we'd be assuming 1/4th of all sponsored links Google has ever served were child porn? Assume 50% of their revenue is sponsored links and that jumps to a full 50% of all sponsored links Google has ever served are child porn.
Wow. The internet is a sick place. At least 25% of Google's entire business model is purely about child porn? They're evil!
Or, alternatively, the "billions" claim is completely made up by someone who saw a company with an apparently huge revenue stream and figured he could either:
a) Get rich by blowing a minor issue out of all proportion and then suing for a chunk of that revenue stream for himself.
b) Make a name for himself as the protector of all the little children, taking on the giants, and wouldn't you really like to vote for him for D.A. next year? After all, he cares about the children. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, PEOPLE!
Given I've not seen a single sponsored link for child porn via Google amongst the dozens of How To Make Money On EBay, How To Get Gold In WoW and various home business ads, I'm guessing a full quarter to a half of their business model is not built on child porn. So I'm going to go with self aggrandizing shyster as my guess.
Nowadays there is not much difference between a Democrat and a Republican, is there?
If there's not much of a difference, why didn't you say "but I'm sure that Google neglected to "donate" to Republicans and/or Democrats."?
Making uninformed, strongly opinionated statements makes you look like a dumbass.
Congratulations, dumbass.
I see the 'fud' tag showing up on a lot of stuff. I would like to let the intrepid tagger know that the word does not mean 'I don't like this article.' I know that's hard to understand. It's kind of the same as the fact that the 'Troll' moderation does not mean 'I don't agree.' As such, I don't expect this lesson to stick.
Please mod me down.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
As a free market promoter and anarcho-capitalist, child porn is one grey area that I don't have a good answer to.
I like to look at porn and do so fairly regularly. I mostly download Usenet porn and have for ~10 years or so. In all that time, I have never once seen child porn. Although I don't go looking for it, I would expect at least once to have accidentally stumbled upon some. It never happened. All this makes me wonder if the hysteria around child porn is actually just people pandering to parent's fears in order to advance their own agenda. It begs the question: is all this mindless panic in proportion to the severity of the problem?
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
the unintended consequences of every piece of regulation seem to create preferential treatment for some elite group rather than actually solve any problems,
What do you mean "unintended"?
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Nowadays there is not much difference between a Democrat and a Republican, is there?
Yes. They're two sides of the same coin. And with "coin", I mean "money".
What else? If I watch videos of illegal street racing on Google Videos am I responsible for the racer's actions? No. I'm merely witnessing a crime. If I were to purchase a video of the race at a car show I'm now actively supporting the actions of the people who made the video, and potentially the people who starred in it.
The same thing goes for any "taboo" or illegal content. The idea that someone can be prosecuted for witnessing a crime is preposterous. The fact that we do prosecute these people (and according to the news and your local sex offender database, it happens a little too often for my comfort) is just horrendous. The idea is now the same as if I were to witness a murder, and be offended, I'd be fine, but if I were to watch a video tape of the murder to get my jollies I'm now a criminal. We can't throw people in jail because of what goes on inside their heads. If they act out any of these thoughts in real life, or in any other way support a crime, they're guilty, but as long as it stays in their head, they should be innocent.
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Won't somebody please think of my children
...because I'm too busy with cocktail parties and late meetings to bother myself. Thanks!