Court Date Set for Google Lawsuit 209
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."
Interesting Point (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it somewhat interesting how Google rightfully doesn't want to cooperate with the US government on this issue, but I also find it funny how they will appease the Chinese government when its in their best interest.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Freedom of ? (Score:3, Interesting)
What bothers me (Score:2, Interesting)
IMHO, when the Federal Government asks for searches, getting a response of: "We don't think it's constitutional for you to be requesting that kind of information on the general public" instead of, "WE'RE NOT ASSHOLISH ENOUGH TO RECORD EVERYONE'S SEARCHES!" is the difference between someone who fights for their stock price (theirself in the eyes of the public), and someone who truly does fight for liberty or freedom.
The government is going to win this case. It's a business, not a real person, all the arguments Google can make against the government holding the information the government could make against Google themselves holding it. Google will break a deal and keep recording what people search for. If they would have been smart and just never recorded searches in the first place (which they do on the Google Search Appliance) then this wouldn't have been a big deal.
IMHO, their response should not have been "No, we will not give you that information." it should have been, "No, we do not record that information." I've been using Yahoo's streamlined search at http://search.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] now for the last two months, but this alone would be enough to make me switch if I hadn't already. I loathe MSN's search, but I've found Yahoo's to be nice enough that I just never enable cookies.
I think Internet searching at the same place that you hold an active email account is probably the worst thing you could possibly do for privacy right now. And it doesn't matter who it is.
Also of note:
http://blog.outer-court.com/googlerobot/ [outer-court.com]
While that is intended to be funny, I think this is pertinent:
"evil" comes from "yfel" and has roots in Germanic languages of High German "ubil" and Gothic "ubils". These are believed to come from the Teutonic root "ubiloz" which carries the meaning of "up" or "over". Basically, it means, "going over the boundaries" or going "above and beyond" in a malicious fashion.
So yes, Google, I *do* think you are evil.
A pictorial demonstration of the evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting Point (Score:3, Interesting)
Do No Evil, Really (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [pbs.org] 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.
Re:What bothers me (Score:3, Interesting)
What are you talking about? Google, as a company, is legally free to collect and keep whatever data it likes. Google didn't force other companies to hand over data; they collected it themselves from users who voluntarily visited Google. The government is also free to collect the data it likes (within the limitations of the fourth amendment). But the government has no particular grounds to force Google to cough up Google's collection of information. Google is not charged with any crime. The government isn't seeking the information in regards to a specific crime. Those are reasons for a supeona. Fishing expeditions hoping to find something to justify a law that the Supreme Court is already pretty ticked at is hardly grounds for search and seizure.
Records of search results (at very least in the form of standard webserver log files) are a useful and powerful tool for optimizing your web service and debugging problems. Sometimes it's useful to be able to compare what people are search for from, say, a year ago to today's results. I would expect any major online service to keep at least a year's logs, and the government's request was for data within that year.
I'm also betting Google's Search Appliance does keep all sorts of interesting logs. Of course, those log probably aren't shipped off to Google, which is appropriate since the data would proprietary to the company which paid for the appliance.
You know that your dear friend Yahoo (and MSN) when confronted with identical subpeonas from the government turned over the information without any challenge [eweek.com], right? Google has flaws, maybe even serious ones, but they're certainly trying harder than their competitors.What a strange thing to obsess over as the worst thing for ones privacy. First, while disassociating your email from your searches will make you slightly harder to track down, any search engine still has your IP address and when you contacted. If there was a serious legal case, that information could be used to contact your ISP and track you down. Add in some cookies and other data mining techniques and your gain is pretty minimal. And is Google knowing what searches you're making really that much worse than, say, your credit card company knowing everything you purchase on your credit card?