Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger 386
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.
Premature, But Ultimately Correct (Score:1, Insightful)
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do no evil? That's funny (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Do No Evil (Score:1, Insightful)
Not necessarily bad (read before flaming me)... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I look forward to (Score:3, Insightful)
mindlessly defending how this is not "evil".
Wow! So I'm to take it that from this one article you now have all the information you need to call anyone that disagrees with you "mindless"!
Seems somewhat "narrow minded" to me. You must be a Republican!
Well that is specious reasoning. I'm not grandparent, a Republican, or anything else for that matter but not only did you misrepresent grandparent's quote but then you attack him by calling him narrow-minded, then you accuse him of being a Republican with the implication that all Republicans are narrow-minded!
It does not bode well for your case when you treat your enemy worse than they treat you. Learn some respect for other people's opinions (even if they are criticizing mindless Google-lovers), for narrow-minded people, for Republicans, and for Evil-Baby-Crushing-Google.
What google is really about. (Score:5, Insightful)
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. [iht.com].
Three days isn't nearly long enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do no evil? That's funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Google is a company that relies heavily on its public image. Hurting that image is bad for it's share holders. Thats why any significant company has PR people. Just that with Google they take it a good deal further than most, and its obviously served their wallets well.
I don't mean to disparage Google, I tremendously enjoy a good number of their services, but lets be realistic.
Re:hi, I'm non-white... (Score:4, Insightful)
So what if I murder somebody? (Score:5, Insightful)
Following due process is important and Google should have done so. Releasing info without court demand is as bad as searching without a warrant.
Re:Premature, But Ultimately Correct (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing to complain about (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I look forward to (Score:3, Insightful)
Trust me, the Republicans don't have a monopoly on narrow-mindedness.
Ron Paul is a Republican and he doesn't seem narrow-minded at all.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is not always a licence to defame others.
Seems like the right thing (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
this isn't about privacy. (Score:2, Insightful)
privacy isn't a platform you can use to attack other people.
Re:Tolerance can also mean second class treatment. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the middle east, which countries can you openly practice your religion no matter what it is? Only one country, Israel. Which countries have full equal rights for women? Again, only Israel. Which countries have open and honest elections? Only Israel. Which countries are perfect? Ha, a trick question. Not a single one.
Re:double entendre (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you clearly don't know what anonymous means.
Re:double entendre (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds, from a distance, like a case where Google made the correct decision, but...
Who gets to define "criminal"? How is this different from turning over the id of a Chinese journalist?
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.
Re:double entendre (Score:3, Insightful)
Something else I find disturbing is that a court did request the information. The fact that it was an informal hearing usually doesn't negate any actions or orders produced from it. You didn't bring it up, but the GP did so I wanted to kill two birds with one post.
Re:Tolerance can also mean second class treatment. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can even be openly Christian and live in Isreal, as long as you don't mind a little spit on your face [google.com]
I think the moral of this story is, if you don't have anything nice to say about someone on the internet, don't say anything at all.
Fuckers.
oops...
Re:Tolerance can also mean second class treatment. (Score:0, Insightful)
Are the occupied Palestinians allowed to vote?
Re:What the hell... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, no, seriously, there's some really nutty people running around on slashdot
Re:double entendre (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
I haven't heart the defense yet. Tell me why Google should be on the prosecutors side. This is Google taking a stand, instead of Google letting the judge make a stand first with a final ruling.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
They left a note on his blog and told him he had 72 hours to respond with his own comments. One of those actions was to respond to the court as an "anonymous".
The judge did not rule that Google should hand over the IP address. This was a preliminary ruling only. Google was not ordered by the court to do anything and indeed could have ignored the request without breaking any laws. They chose not too. They chose to take action to help identify own of their bloggers.
But then the action was nothing more than a shopkeeper telling a lawyer: "Yes, I've seen him, he buys bread here regularly." Now, is the shopkeeper violating his customers privacy? Should the shopkeeper asked for a warrant first?
Re:double entendre (Score:4, Insightful)
Very good point, but there are two reasons I think the concept of slander would still be valid:
a) The cases where anonymous message reveals information that only a reliable source would have, such as a passcode.
b) Even if people *shouldn't* accept self-serving unverifiable statements at face value, they do, and thus slander can wrongfully harm someone.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
Ok, sure (Score:2, Insightful)
Because if it were truly criminal, a judge could say so and issue a subpoena.
tell me why someone shouldn't have the right to ask Google for help in the prosecution of a crime.
They do. It's called a subpoena. If Google Israel truly respected their customer's rights, they would simply wait for a subpoena. Also, slander/libel isn't typically considered a crime--though the summary says it "probably" was in this case, I can't see how this would ever be a good idea. Malicious/harmful lies are torts and are punishable by civil law--not by people with guns knocking you to the ground, tasering you, dragging you off and locking up up with violent criminals.
tell me when "the right to privacy" became a right to injure others anonymously - safe from any consequences.
As someone else has already said, any reasonable person should judge that no harm was done. Anonymous slander/libel by definition is completely frivolous and unbelievable. Look, watch:
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, RAPES BABIES! HE RAPES THEM UNTIL THEY BLEED TO DEATH AND THEN EATS THEIR CORPSES WITH A SIDE ORDER OF FAVA BEANS!
Now, you see, who here believes me? No one, obviously, because I'm just another vulgar, anonymous, raving lunatic on the internet. With very few exceptions, anonymous slander doesn't cause significant damage in today's rumor-jaded world. The Israeli politician in this case should have to prove that someone actually took the anonymous blogger seriously, and that person somehow took harmful action against himself. Even if he could, I still don't think this should possibly be considered a crime.
Re:double entendre (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Do no evil? That's funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:double entendre (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying "the person being slandered" begs the question of whether slander has been committed.
If a court determines slander has been committed, the court will order the owner of the IP to be revealed, and presumably punished. Any "damages" can then be pursued in a civil suit. You seem to be arguing that you should have the right to demand the identity of anyone who you claim to have slandered you without regard for any standards of proof.
Public Terminal? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Ok, sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, you see, who here believes that? No one [boston.com], obviously, because it's from just another vulgar, anonymous, raving lunatic on the internet. With very few exceptions, anonymous slander doesn't cause significant damage in today's rumor-jaded world.
Re: "Anonymous has no weight"? (Score:3, Insightful)
But an entire class of people who fall prey to groupthink don't care that a gossip seed was originally "anonymous". It's tantalizing, and once they tell the story enough time themselves, they decide it's true by default.
When anonymous is combined with permitted lies, social structure breaks down because it opens the way for people to accuse each other of saying it. Trolling indeed.
Re:Do No Evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Hooray progress!
Re:double entendre (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Genocide. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Half my friends are Jews. I think I stated already - no, I KNOW I stated it already, but just for you, I'll do it again; I have no problem at all with Jews in exactly the same way I don't have any problem with Americans. But their psychotic governments are a different matter altogether. There. Let that sink in. --Just because I am criticizing a government for killing civilians en masse, it does not make me anti-Semitic. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? The 'anti-Semite' card is getting very old and very tired.
The ONLY way to arrive at your conclusion is by ignoring all of the available data, and all common sense, so what point is there for me to attempt to engage you in rational discourse?
I've known IDF soldiers who came back to the West to laugh about getting high and killing people. Maybe they were an extreme example, but their accounts were certainly hair-raising in a, 'these guys are really scary' kind of way. --And if theirs was an accurate indication of some of the forces moving within the Israeli military and government, then it is very hard to take Israel's stated innocence in the media at face value.
As for my ignoring all available data? Hm. Even CNN covered the wall which Israel put up, so I didn't miss that fact. Then there's the armed check points; those are in the main-stream news (i.e., pro-Israeli-spun news, it should always be remembered), so I didn't miss those facts either. The confiscation of land is well known. The recent bull-dozing of civilian houses and orchards is less well known, but the footage is plentiful, so I'm not missing those points. The imprisonment and starvation of an entire population on the Gaza Strip. . , well nobody likes to talk about that much or use those terms, but those facts are also freely available, so they can't be the facts you're referring to. --And of course, the on-going bombing raids and the shootings and the general killing of civilians through the use of a highly advanced and extremely well-equipped military. What facts am I missing here?
Just because genocides in the past have been more sudden and abrupt does not mean that there is not a deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy an entire people going on; a campaign which has a measurable and regular body count; more facts. --And you suggest that I am the one with race hatred? Hm. It is an interesting fact, (and yes, this is another fact), that the abuser, particularly the sociopathic abuser will accuse the victim of the very abuses they themselves are guilty of.
But then, you are telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe that's true. However, maybe your facts are the ones which are not accurate. Maybe you're the one who is buying into propaganda. Have you considered that before? And assuming you have considered this, what did you base your (clearly) negative conclusion on?
-FL
Re:So what if I murder somebody? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:double entendre (Score:3, Insightful)
In the context of you post of course your comparison is wildly wrong. As people have to choose to look at and read the anonymous blog, more accurately your comparison aligns with spam also a bit of privacy invasion as you would have to have obtained all the email addresses of the people in that neighbourhood.
Re:double entendre (Score:3, Insightful)
If all that language did was communicate fact or opinion, then it would be easy to say "Don't trust anonymous sources," "Verify your data," etc.
But language does more than communicate information -- every act of speech is also inherently creative. When I say "The Duke lacrosse team beat and raped me," I am doing more than communicating a fact (true or false). I am calling into existence an instance of "rape" in the minds of all those whom my language datum reaches. I am creating it there, bringing with it connotations and associations of powerlessness, abuse, degradation, patriarchy; I am calling up emotional responses of horror, righteous anger, shock, etc. Further, I am associating all of this with 'the Duke lacrosse team.'
Even if we eventually learn that the informational content of the message is false, the human mind is still subject to its associative effect -- particularly if we are exposed to the message many times over. Witness the pairing of the words "9/11" and "Iraq" in the run-up to the current war. Witness the pairing of sexuality and product in every other ad.
The associative effect of the creative power of language is inevitable -- it's this effect that allows us a learning process to take place in the human mind. It's an inherently human effect, one that makes the human mind qualitatively different from binary circuits. It cannot be avoided or brushed off to "stupid people." It affects "us," as in "all of us," not "them," as in "the others, the evil and/or dumb ones."
I think a recognition of this, the metacommunicative power of language, places a heavy responsibility on all of us who would use it. However, I agree that the twin problems of lying and bullshitting (slander surely falls into one or the other) are not easily solved by legal measures -- nor do they properly belong in the realm of law. They seem, rather, to be two issues of personal ethics -- ones that we should take seriously, and foremost within ourselves.
Re:double entendre (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:double entendre (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't sue for slander because someone says something that hurts your feelings. You sue for slander when someone spreads false information about you that causes you actual harm. If someone destroys my livelihood by spreading false information about me, thick skin isn't going to put food on the table.