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Google vs the Feds
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:44 pm
by waradmin
I saw this on another forum, and was wondering if anyone has heard about it.
Federal prosecutors defending the Child Online Protection Act, a controversial Internet pornography law, are demanding that Google hand over a million search records.
In court documents, the Bush administration asked a federal judge to force Google to comply with a subpoena for the records, which would reveal the search terms of a broad swath of Google's visitors.
In the following pages, you can read the prosecutors' request, which Google is adamantly denying.
Here is the
pdf
and according to
this source, MSN and Yahoo have already turned over their search records. Doesnt this violate some kind of privacy act?
-steve
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:04 pm
by feyd
sadly, under the patriot act it doesn't violate any real laws per se (that I know of) .. if it's just zeitgeist data then it's not really likely to contain any personal information, so I'm not seeing any laws it would violate.
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:08 pm
by hawleyjr
Yeah, I saw this on national news a couple nights ago. I agree with Google, the gov. has no business and if they try to use the "patriot act" to get this info then they are full of it. Their main reason is to get stats on the amount of searches that relate to porn.
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:27 pm
by waradmin
I personaly think they dont have anything better to do. This seems like a worthless thing to do because IP's change so much its hard to track people.
Big waste of time feds.
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 11:33 pm
by hawleyjr
Doubtful, ISP's buy chunks of IP addresses and designate an IP address for their users. (AOL is different I think) It's all one long paper trail. People are tracked via IP address very often.
Also, from what I remember reading about this. They’re not looking for pervs. They’re looking for stats on how many pervs are out there.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:40 am
by Gambler
Doesnt this violate some kind of privacy act?
Does it make any
real difference? The question is, what that data could possibly be used for?
BTW, it's nice to hear that search engines store all queries for for more than seven month. To what end? What do you think
they do with those records? Meditate on this.
sadly, under the patriot act it doesn't violate any real laws per se
IIRC, P-act is about terrorism, not child online protection.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:06 am
by Chris Corbyn
I'm aware of this too. AFAIK, in the UK at least, no ISP is required by law to hand over details of a user on a given IP address... couldn't possibly comment on how that works in the US though.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:14 am
by m3mn0n
If the search term logging contains a timestamp and an IP, what's to stop the gov from going to the ISP and asking them who used this IP at x time? I'm not sure if ISPs log when a certain account as a certain IP, but I'd imagine it's a fairly easy thing for them to do with broadband subscribers and I heard of ISPs actually doing this.
I really do not like this move. The phrase "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile" comes into mind for me here. If they allow this without a fight, who knows what's next.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:16 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
As above - in the US its not illegal.
Of course its not only Americans who use Google... And I couldn't see Google giving in without a fight - it'd be a bad hit to their reputation as a friendly company regardless of how many billions their stock flotation is...
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:31 am
by Grim...
d11wtq wrote:...in the UK at least, no ISP is required by law to hand over details of a user on a given IP address...
That's correct.
If they don't, though, the ISP is held responsible for whatever naughty thing the user whose identity they are protecting has done.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:43 am
by Bill H
As I read the news item, they are not after the pervs or the porn sites, but are merely trying to prove that the "Child Protection Act" doesn't work and that too many people are still able to access materials that the act supposedly keeps children from reaching. (So they can pass a more restrictive act?) Not sure how they are going to do that without identifying the users of the searches as they claim is their intention.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:35 am
by pilau
I don't get this. It's not the first time that I've heard of US government officials trying to control the flow of information on the internet. Why do they do that? The internet is so special because it's FREE. No censor.
Besides, what gives them ligitimacy to do so?
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:55 am
by Moocat
pilau wrote:I don't get this. It's not the first time that I've heard of US government officials trying to control the flow of information on the internet. Why do they do that? The internet is so special because it's FREE. No censor.
Besides, what gives them ligitimacy to do so?
I don't know, everyday the politicians do something else completely retarded and against the very nature on which this country was founded. I heard the other day someone said the country was founded on religion and that's the only thing holding it together. What utter <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>. The country was supposed to be founded on freedom to express yourself and pretty much be free of any persucution religous, race, or otherwise. Now you can't walk down the street without hearing some right wing politician tell us how we should all fear for our lives because of terrorist middle eastern countries. Have you seen the looks middle eastern people get when getting on a bus or even eating in a coffee shop?
I don't know about you, but I'm none too keen on being ruled by someone who controls through fear tactics. All I can say is...WTF are you "representatives" thinking?
I'm seriously considering moving to Ireland or something where at least I can take a <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> without someone wanting to know what color it is. Got room for two Maug?

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:15 am
by Chris Corbyn
Don't want to ruin to discussion but no politics please.
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:47 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
The US flies secretive flights in and out of Ireland on a weekly basis - believe me, even my Government has seen pretty extraordinary pressure to step and ask questions about what the flights are in aid of. They're CIA if it matters - came out a while back after a few leaks were sprung.
Things are pretty bad if Ireland, a neutral country, is allowing such carry ons. The government's taken quite a beating over it too. This keeps up someone's going to write the words "neutral nation - no military or CIA flights allowed" into the constitution... Now that would be interesting....
It'll get pretty desperate for the government is anyone discovers so called US prisoners of war were involved...
The internet is so special because it's FREE. No censor.
The US controls the Internet (mostly the connectivity side) - the international community tried to get them to share control. But that didn't go over very well. So long as no red "off" buttons are installed I suppose I can deal with it...
Besides, what gives them ligitimacy to do so?
The citizens of the United States of America. Much as some may dislike it, the US Government was duly elected. Maybe a few years down the line the voting will shift back to a more moderate influence. You know, where the President of the most powerful country in the world does not believe Creationism to be valid science, does not believe ignoring the international community is a good idea, etc. etc.
We can hope, eh?