Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger

An anonymous reader alerts us to a story out of Israel in which Google (its Israeli subsidiary) gave up the IP address of a Blogger user without being compelled to do so by a court. A preliminary ruling was issued in which a court indicated that the slander the blogger was accused of probably rose to the level of a criminal violation. Google Israel then made a deal with the plaintiffs, local city councilmen whom the blogger had been attacking for a year. Google disclosed the IP address only to the court, which posted a message (Google says the anonymous blogger got it) inviting him/her to contest the ruling anonymously. When no response was received within 3 days, Google turned over the IP address to the plaintiffs' lawyers.

Comments

Interesting...

[Lord Aurora]

...in contrast to Google's vow to protect its users' privacy early last year. Although this is a very different situation...criminal libel instead of general aggregate use data. Perhaps Google cares about its users as a whole but not as individuals.

Re:Interesting...

[westlake]

Perhaps Google cares about its users as a whole but not as individuals.

tell me why Google should ignore criminal abuse of its networks and services.

tell me why someone shouldn't have the right to ask Google for help in the prosecution of a crime.

tell me when "the right to privacy" became a right to injure others anonymously - safe from any consequences.

Re:Interesting...

[rmerry72]

Who gets to define "criminal"?

The government. Any and all governments. Each individual government in each individual jurisdication where that government holds power. Even governments we view as being corrupt or morally reprehensible to the determent of their own people.

How is this different from turning over the id of a Chinese journalist?

Google was ordered to by the legal court in the country. Google was not ordered so in this case. There was no court order, merely a preliminary ruling. Different country, different law.

When powerful people get to define what is a crime, then I'm not easy about "criminal" being used as a justifier for the breaking of confidentiality.

Tough. Criminals have few rights, in some countries less than others. Rights to a "fair trial" or "innocent until proven guilty" are all at the discretion of the ruling power in the land - whichever land that may be - and often on a case by case basis. And yes, some governments define almost everybody as a criminal and then apply whatever punishment they want.

That's life. Reality bites. Has been for all civilisations for all time, including the one you live in and the one I live in now.

And no, you shouldn't feel comfortable about it, but then there is nothing you can do to change it. Just avoid getting caught in those countries by those governments.

Do no evil? That's funny

[Infonaut]

"Do no evil"?

Do no evil + IPO = Public company

IPO = Public company

Google is just as good, bad, or ugly as the next public company. They're trying to balance the interests of their shareholders and their belief in doing no evil. In the end, the interests of shareholders will win every time. If they can keep clear of any illegal insider trading, mistreatment of employees, or other b.s. that affects so many public companies, that'll be a "good" outcome. Believing that somehow Google is different because it thinks it is different is pure fantasy.

It's 2007, folks. The Cult of the Shareholder rules.

Not necessarily bad (read before flaming me)...

[hax0r_this]

I'm not sure that I fully understand the situation, but if Google had waited until the final ruling to release the IP would that have actually prevented the blogger in question from fighting the ruling? If that is the case then short of simply defying a court order (which is something that should be considered on a case by case basis) this would seem to have been the best thing Google could have done. Had they waited they would have been allowing the plaintiff to "pull an RIAA" on the guy (or girl). If, on the other hand, that is not the case then shame on Google (a bit anyway - I still think Yahoo's games with the guy in China were much worse, but that doesn't excuse this).

What google is really about.

[catwh0re]

If what you mean is that Google is beholden to the law in the countries in which it operates. I agree fully.

Otherwise it's just sensationalist nonsense. Google is a company with an aim to generate income. However much of it's business deals are driven by the knowledge that google works in "good faith" with it's partners. (Many companies won't partner with Microsoft on new technologies because they don't want to be the next SGI/Fahrenheit sucker.)

Companies, universities and investors would not embrace google if it's practices were unfair on it's users. From reading the article we can see that Google actually made a decent decision and gave the anonymous user options before eventually releasing the details.

Google needs to appear as a reasonable entity to the courts. If google fights the courts to the last frontier in every case it is presented, it would not only be costly to the company, but give google a damaging litigious image. Instead google chooses it's battles wisely for the betterment of it's users allowing it to defend more important legal issues with success..

Three days isn't nearly long enough

[Jimmy_B]

According to the article, Google released the blogger's identity when he failed to respond within 72 hours. That is MUCH too fast. Even if he dropped what he was doing and acted immediately, it would still take longer than that to figure out what's going on, get a lawyer, and draft a response. That's ignoring the fact that he probably didn't receive the message immediately (subtract 24 hours), probably had other things on his plate (subtract another 24 hours) and may not have even realized that the notice was legit. (An e-mail is not a legitimate court summon. If you receive one which claims to be, it is probably a scam.)

So what if I murder somebody?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Everyone eventually dies anyway.

Following due process is important and Google should have done so. Releasing info without court demand is as bad as searching without a warrant.

Seems like the right thing

[Todd Knarr]

Fact: someone who's been wronged has a right to pursue the person responsible. No argument there. The fact that the person responsible is attempting to hide his identity doesn't change that. The problem with the RIAA's tactics is that they want the identity before proving they've been wronged. In this case the councilmen did the right thing: went into court, convinced a judge that the words as written did in fact qualify as something legally actionable, then asked for the identity of the responsible party. It might be technically more correct to wait until a final ruling, but I doubt the final ruling would be significantly different from the preliminary one. Judges don't just fire from the hip when making a preliminary ruling, it's more like "This will be how I rule, unless someone fairly quickly comes up with something that hasn't been even hinted at yet that's major enough to counter everything I've seen so far.".

Sorry, guys, but contrary to popular belief the right to remain anonymous is not a shield against being held responsible for your statements and actions. It just means that the other party should have to prove that your statements or actions were in fact legally actionable before stripping you of your anonymity.

Re:double entendre

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that this is just a case of responsibility, for the individual to be held accountable for what they say.

  Then you clearly don't know what anonymous means.

Re:double entendre

[Thrip]

Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of anonymous speech. I keep hearing this argument from the kind of people who you know would love to curtail speech in general. In a country where a large majority vigorously defends free speech, perhaps anonymity would not be necessary. But in a country like the one I live in, where the citizens are told that they have free speech, but where you can be jailed for years for speaking certain truths to your lawyer, spouse, or doctor, and where thugs can come to your home or workplace and intimidate you if you publicly question your rulers, anonymous speech is necessary. When the government tries to ban certain types of speech, having a way to speak anonymously nullifies the ban. Sometimes it is necessary for a thing to be said anonymously at first, so that it can be discussed openly afterward.

Re:double entendre

[Thrip]

Would you consider this to be true even when the speech isn't true? Yes. One price of free speech is misinformation. This is true regardless of anonymity. Look at the Swift Vets, for instance. And my instinct is that anything said anonymously is automatically not slanderous, because it either contains evidence or it has no weight. That, of course, is my moral opinion, not a legal one.

Re:double entendre

[Jay L]

it is probably better for people to check their sources rather than pretend that it is safe to assume what you hear is true. i personally believe that the freedom to lie should not be restricted, even though lying is certainly a bad thing. this is partially because of how awkward cases for slander and libel and defamation can be.

So take the Internet out of the equation.

It's cool for me to post unsigned flyers around your neighborhood, with your photo, full name, and address, claiming that "This man raped my daughter", because people should assume that it's not safe to trust anonymous flyers?