Google Redirects Traffic To Avoid Kazakh Demands

pbahra writes "Google has rejected attempts by the Kazakh government 'to create borders on the web' and has refused a demand to house servers in the country after an official decree that all Internet domains ending with the domain suffix for Kazakhstan be domestically based. Bill Coughran, Google senior vice president said in his blog that from now on, Google will redirect users that visit google.kz to google.com in Kazakh: 'We find ourselves in a difficult situation: creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression. If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we would be helping to create a fractured Internet.' Mr. Coughran said that unfortunately, it would mean that Kazakh users would have a poorer experience as results would no longer be customized for the former Soviet republic."

Comments

Legal vs Technical Issues

[codegen]

Location of the server is becoming more and more of an issue, and most of us techies seem to consider the technical while downplaying the legal. One perfect example is outsourcing of email and other "cloud" services. Google, as well as other companies, will gladly take over you email domain and provide you with email service. Several Canadian Universities have considered this. However, student information in Canada is considered private information, and some provinces (i.e. states) such as Ontario have even stronger restrictions (We can't even admit that someone is a student without written permission). Moving email to a server that is outside of Canadian legal jurisdiction would be a legal accident waiting to happen, especially given the National Security Letters in the US PATRIOT Act. I know of professors that use services like DropBox without ever considering the legal ramifications.