wow... the gov just sucks... privicy is privicy!!!

If the gov is allow my date, i might just stop using the seach site all toguether, i know i won't user yahoo and msn just because of that...

I'm with google!!!

I'm with Google. Canadian privacy laws clearly prohibit the release of such data.

Thank God I live in a country that does not seek to abridge and violate the rights of its citizens with ever-newer Orwellian legislature.

Furthermore, I thank God that my fellow canadians are FAR more diligent in protecting those rights and are less willing to blindly trust their government "just because they are the government".

Finally, what many fail to understand is the concept of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile". The requests may seem harmless at first but given the track record of the US government I rather dount they'll stay that way for very long.

But hey, thankfully it's YOUR problem - we had the foresight to enact legislation to prevent such a situation and any evolution stemming from it from happening here.

We thought we had it all taken care of when we drew up the constitution.

In the name of the Children our rights will be stripped, our privacy destroyed, and our freedoms ended.

Permenantly.

The road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.

DMCA
Patriot Act
FEPA
COPA

These will kill the American Spirit far swifter and more assuredly than any Terrorist Organization could ever dream of.

And the American people...just....don't...care.

It's disgusting.

The constitution has been ammended and legislated out of the picture.. it is now a powerless historical document you can use to wipe your butt with because then it would get use... READ the patriot act... it abolishes everything the constitution established

Adda Boy Google ! You fight'em don't give into the U.S. Government .. They're a bunch of control freaks who want to control every aspect of the human life.

For all the comments posted with fears of privacy violation no one seems to have been able to grasp the facts.

The information requrest by the federal government is about general trends for a random population of users. Which IP addresses were searching for what is not what is being revealed here, which is why MSN and Yahoo had no complaints about complying.

Google wants to take a stand on principles -- such as censoring Tianamen Square and Fulan Gong from Google's Chinese Portal. For a company that wants to stand on principles they are taking some interesting positions.

Listening to some of the comments below, they seem to beleive that for the government to know that x% of a random sample fo users searched for child porn is a violation of their Constituational rights. Using that logic, US Census reports should be un-Constitutional as the Census bureau -- unlike the Google data -- could theoritcally trace the information back to the source.

I realize it may be fashionable to criticize the government and/or feel like an oppressed victim but there's nothing of the sort going on here. Move along.

I agree up to the point that it may invade Google's privacy rather than ours. Google is lying about why they are fighting this. I am pretty convinced of this. However--could google somehow be damaged by revealing this info? Maybe so--how would anyone here be able to know for sure?

All in all I think this is harmless to google, unless it reveals something they are doing that is illegal or does not follow their own privacy policy...

In fact I don't think BetaNews itself was not able to "grasp the facts". See my comments in 2 messages below. This "report" incorrectly states that it was intended to support a Child Pornography issue. This is not the case. It is about "Child Protection" yes - but from them seeing obscene material. I'm dissapointed that BetaNews has reported in this misleading manner and did not correct their story to be acurate.

-----------

I retract my comment. It looks like BetaNews made a second correction now to remove "Child" from "Child Pornography"

Thanks BetaNews!

I would like to see such edits noted in a sidebar or a highlighted area above - instead of editing the original article. This would help to add to your integrity - to make claims to your errors.

Regards.

As I just mentioned in another post, I've heard the argument that Google might be doing this to protect their trade secrets.

1) I don't understand the technical issues sufficiently to comprehend how releasing aggregated results from search data would reveal trade secrets.

2) If you accept the assumption of #1, who are they revelaing the trade secrets too? The Justice Departement and the Judge. Perhaps Google fears that the justice system is corrupt and they would risk their careers to sell Google's trade secrets to the highest bidder...

There's something going on here and I'm finding it difficult to comprehend Google's motivations for resisting an order that MSN and Yahoo have already complied with.

I'm sorry but I have to laugh....

Yes you are correct that the request was for porn searches and not necessaily child porn. The purpose was to collect information on porn trends and the efficacy of filters as they relate to a case about child porn.

Your desire to see a section for corrections is just so....how can I put this....it's so cute!

Most of us are still waiting for any major American newspaper to do the same on dozens of issues. Last week Friday the AP published a major correction on the Bush/Katrina story but somehow no major US paper was able to find the time or the space to mention the correction released by the Associated Press.

Yahoo, and MSN have already stated that the information that the gov seeks can be gathered without giving the private information that Google states they will have to provide.

I too wonder what they are actually hiding.

http://blog.searchengine...ogle_motiontocompel.pdf

(The actual court papers for people here who want the truth about what this is)

If Google loses this, then they must have hired some really poor lawyers. Because there is no way this should be able to pass.

I'm also tired of people referring to this having to do with child porn, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with child porn. Yet the media is spinning this whole story out of control. Especially the pro-Bush radio stations.

Ok, so the US government want to protect its children from porno, and to do this they require ALL google's search data, despite google having a safe-search feature.

Did I miss something, or is that it? I seriously hope other countries leave that up to the user.

Kramy, I just went to Google site and looked for this feature on their homepage and saw nothing.

If I were a teen looking for porn, then it would be safe to say that this so-called safe-feature would not apply. If there were a safe-feature, it is still easy to go to www.google.com and do your search from their.

Wouldn't even their safe-feature be against their own creed in that it is filtering results, much like the scrunity that they have come under with regards to China?

They are not looking for all data, just a sample without any personally identifiable information. How much clearer is that. Google claims they have to give out your personal data, but the gov doesn't want it.

Now, what are they protecting?

Click preferences at google.com. Every user can configure it to their liking.

It's up to the user if they want to filter results.

I don't trust the US government, or any governments for that matter. They all have black secrets.

"If there were a safe-feature, it is still easy to go to www.google.com and do your search from their."

So the answer is censorship?

Niiice....

To both PC_Tool and Kramy,

Perhaps you are taking me wrong and I want to clarify. Thanks for the info on the ‘safe-search’ from Google.

1st How likely is it that a teenager, or adult for that matter, wants to open up a Google website and set up the “safe-search” you talk about to then search for porn he most likely knows would not display the results he was looking for(quantity, not quality). If this is the only way in which to block porn(which it wont), then it is not enough and porn is too easily accessible to young children.

2nd, I hardly f eel that any Internet Search Engine should be the one to filter out any content unless it is to be deemed illegal or immoral by the very people it servers(ex. child pornography) Its purpose should be to give you results without an form of interference(filters), or other influences(money). The ‘safe-search’ feature you described(kramy) can be part of this, but this is the same kind of filter that Google and China have been publicly criticized for. What works for China is good for China, and the rest of us will just have to live with it.

Though I do not like censorship, there are times and circumstances for it. This seems to be what most complain about here and their loss of privacy if such information is to be given to the feds. Everybody likes free porn and feel that their ability to reach this free porn will be “snatched” away(no pun intended) by the laws the fed government is ultimately seeking.

I do believe in a way in which to see any pornography should be done with the assurance to the appropriate age of the individual looking at the website. This would require the giving away of some private information, and into the hands of those that would(if they could) do something inappropriate with it. Talk about privacy! The fact that we have to give any information to one of these sites would make most of us shiver as we would no longer be able to look at porn without our wives/husbands finding out.(mostly the wives)

Censorship is situational. There will always be times that you will want some form of censorship with regard to something you are doing. Would it really matter that Google came back with 1,000,000 results to “teenage girls” rather than 20. Those that do, have way too much time on their hands. Those that don’t, I would only question why these 20 out of 1,000,000. What puts them on top? How much did they pay? And how would the other sites compare that I am not being given the results of? Is it truly representative of what I am looking for? Isn’t Google(any search engine) censoring what I am searching for then. They surely have those 20 at heart for what they give them, not what they give me.

Lastly, Give it up Google. Hand over the info without the personal info and your precious secrets. I would respect them more if they had just said we need more time to filter out the personal and secret info before complying.

I am sorry, I tend to digress and rant, and it is truly my opinion. Doesn’t cost a dime either.

It really makes me sad when they will strip away all the freedoms we have. Either to save us from terrorists, or because it's "for the children".

Get a warrent and go to them with an IP address, like it should be done.

This whole thing is funny. Google says they don't want to give out the information because of privacy concerns, but they sell them same information to others. What a joke.

????

Explain?

He cannot.

he makes these stupid accusations and then disappears. He never backs them up, has absolutely zero proof, and really makes me wish BN had an ignore function.

Hey...that'd be a great idea for a greasemonkey script...

Go live in another country.

The United States is the greatest place to live in the entire world.

The United States is the greatest place to live in the entire world.
Ehhh, yeah, i don't think so!!!

I like Sweden, personally. Wanna move there, but...

ROFLMAO!

google admited on the news, cnbc that they sell your information, what website you goto, what e-mail you get and read, and what you buy through froogle. How do you think they make money.

Exactly. There was an article in Infoworld which just discussed this. Here is the relevant quote:

"Google queries are 'disclosed routinely to third parties when a user clicks any link in Google search results', writes Phillip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a government expert witness in court documents"

"Indeed, Google tells anyone with a web stie more than it has told the government so far".

So why is Google doing this? I've heard the protection of trade secrets as an argument but I don't fully understand how aggregated data could reveal trade secrets.

The argument that they are taking a stand to protect the privacy of their users simply does not hold water.

They certainly won't take a stand to protect free speech in China....

Maybe they don't care about the Chinese? :D

Wait, so clicking a link to visit a page from a google search notifies third-parties, which could include the page you are visitting?

Advertising?

Give us a link, otherwise, shut-up.

"disclosed routinely to third parties when a user clicks any link in Google search results"

My God....

Great! Quote someone who can't give us anything more solid that the schoolkid above you.

"disclosed routinely to third parties...for all we know, "WE" could be the third parties and the disclosure could simply be ... the web page. *gasp*

People who actually have something to stand on will generally give sources and name names. People who don't use phrases like "third parties".

C'mon people. This is classic FUD.

Exactly. Could also include the person doing the googling. In otherwords, the guys got nothing and had a deadline.

I think you are way to paranoid. If the gov gets your peronsal porn information, then you only have Google to blame - not them. The feds aren't asking for it! Read the link above from TC17.

If the gov doesn't want your peronsal information, what is Google protecting of yours? What harm can become of any of the data unless, they willingly give it to them?

http://www.mercurynews.c...ercurynews/14086809.htm

12 paragraph down

This is me laughing because you posted a link to the exact same quote the guy above quoted.

Gee, thanks.

Again, What exactly doeshe mean by "third party"?

Me? You? The website linked by the query? Lack of specifics leads me to believe the guy is full of it, as it should any thinking person.

He's just trying to make controversy out of nothing....if he actually *had* something, he'd prove it.

He's a professor at UC-Berkley and an expert witness in such legal cases -- but nah -- he's just making it up. We know all those Berkley professors are really neo-conservatives that drool like a Pavlov dog at the prospect of being able to know what naughty sites we are all surfing too.

Even Infoworld concluded that Google is already giving away more information to web sites than they are willing to provide to the government.

But I guess Infoworld has it all wrong too and you'll enlighten us all :)

More like the referrer giving the URL of the page that you clicked on the link from. Someone reading the site logs could see what URLs a person came from in order to reach their site (if they clicked a link and didn't just type it in).

That's a common server feature. Any site can do it.

Ooh, a professor. Lets all watch them get made fun of! =D

http://ts.searching.com/...bmit.x=0&submit.y=0

No. I won't. Because I don't have proof.

But I guess that's just something other folks don't need anymore, eh?

If Inforworld and this professor are so damn sure of it, why, oh why can't they put up some actual evidence instead of making claims they cannot back up or justify?

Go ahead, though....fall for it. Accept what is written as fact, even though it lacks any form of proof.

God forbid anyone should question the ethics or motives of a Professor or trade mag. *gasp*

Where's the link kid.

Those that can do..

Hey, you asked for a link and that is all I supplied. Now you attack me for giving the link. Maybe you should just read the article rather than criticize me for giving it. I skimmed through it giving the consideration I though was necessary. If you need something more, you will have to read.

Again, I only gave the link. What you think of him is up to you. Please don't take it out on others.

You are hardly looking for proof. You are only blinding wanting to argue until others stop talking to you. You can't force someone to believe what you want. Accept it and move on. You are attacking people you don't even know and their ability to talk about a subject you are unwilling to hear both sides.

It was a newshow would you like me to post the video on this site. I will record what I see next time just for you :'(

I think that this type of confusion in reporting and general public understanding is what the feds always meant to happen when they called it the "Child Protection Act". This was so people would feel that if you don't support it - you don't support protecting children. When really all-along it was more the "Protecting Children from Obscene Content" law - I am not a lawyer but I do know at least this is what the sopena to Google was about - or how it was reported previously by BetaNews itself.

By the way. BetaNews is still incorrect in their news story as of 3:59 EST even with the correction they made already to the article.

... it is not "to defend a law against child pornography" it is in fact to prove that filters such as NetNanny are not effective in protecting children from obscene content. Those are the facts and I hope everyone understands that - no matter what the article says.

--------------

See BetaNew's original news item - January 19, 2006, 3:03 PM:

"Under that law, the government could punish pornography sites that made content easily accessible to minors"

Quoted from: http://www.betanews.com/..._Search_Data/1137700995

This is not about "Child Pornography" at heart - but that could be debated. However I think it should be debated within the forums and between people - the statements regarding child pornography by BetaNews seems to be at least - misleading and at worst misleading and factually incorrect.

what's google?

I'm VERY disapointed to see that minutes after my post regarding the infactual text to "fight a case involving child pornography" (that was copied and pasted directly from the article) had led to a change in the news story. This all without a notice of the original incorrect statement. BetaNews should be well aware of the defacto-standard of leaving the original news item intact - by making a notice of correction. This means that people who previously read this news story - and may return to read comments will not be corrected in what they originally had thought was "news".

BetaNews can you think of a better way to make a correction? Why not just make a highlighted notice at the top of the article instead of "re-writing the news".

It is also important to note that the News does still seem to be incorrect. They are now stating it was "to defend a law against child pornography". This is the exact phrase that replaced to "fight a case involving child pornography".

However its important for readers to note that this still is incorrect. The original intent was to protect minors from seeing obscene content. This is not a "Child Pornography" issue directly - at least not as it has been reported.

Delete the data Google
Don't give them to those bas****s.

Bush wants my used underwear, take it damn it!

Blame Bush. I dont have underwear. I blame freaking bush!!!!

Yeah, yeah, blame bush, but who voted twice?

What the heck?! This has totally flipped... did BetaNews make an error in reporting that this is now to "fight a case involving child pornography"? Originally this was about "Child Protection" in order to protect minors from *seeing* obscene content - not being in it - two totally different issues. Did the DOJ, the Bush Administration or BetaNews make this change or error? I would really like to know.

If this has been spun by the Bush Admin or the DOJ has made such an infactual error in their judgement. I believe this is BIG news.

If it is simply a factual error by BetaNews I think that BetaNews now owes us a notice correction to its readers - as would be see in traditional print newspapers.

The Bush administration wants to defend a law against pornography. They are fighting the case, because the law was ruled unconstitutional.

When this first started, no one mentioned child porn. I thought it had to do with terrorism. At any rate, if the owners of search engines wouldn't be using our data for their own financial interests we wouldn't have the problem with audit trails this brings to light.

I hope Google gets their @$$ handed to them on a platter.

Anything involving child pornography should be fair game.

People that look at that crap need to be hanged.

Google stance on this has nothing to do with Child Pornography.

Just wanted to clear that up. :)

I think Google is doing a great job highlighting privacy. Not only the consumers but their own, how can the DOJ be sure that the information they are requesting won't have trade scerets and if it does how can they promise they won't be disclosed when they can't even trust the VPs CoS.

If no personal data is revealed then how will it be used in a case to fight child pornography? Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not in favor of child pornography, but I hope that Google wins this thing.

It will reveal whether or not searches bring back results that could contain child pornography.

That's all they want. They are trying to pass a law that will enforce a form of censorship. They believe the parental controls available today are inadequate and want to do it for us.

The DOJ told them it was unconstitutional and told them they need to prove it is not before they will hear any more about it.

The Gov is now gathering information supposedly for this very purpose.

It's censorship, pure and simple. Google may not be able to stop a country that's already enforcing Gov censorship (China), but they can (and hopefully will) do whatever may still be in their rights within the US to stop our Gov from heading in that same direction.

I'm confused, if that is all they want why don't they simply search Google for it themselves. It sounds to me like they used the terrorism thing as an excuse first and when that didn't work they decided to use this as their ace in the hole.

I agree with you.

At first glance, Google appears to be the stupid one here. They were bickering over something that is meaningless to them, so I thought. Then I began thinking logically (I try that at least once a year or so, LOL), and realised this is much like the case against Microsoft. The EU wants MS to reveal information that, to the EU, is not in any way harmful to Microsoft. How can the EU know that? They can't unless they have the info themselves.

Well--how do I know that this doesn't somehow reveal Google's trade secrets in some way, or undermine their security or disclose some big secret that is the sole reason for their success. Google may still be evil, but they are fighting this for a reason. I can guarantee that consumer's privacy is their concern, they can lie all they want. Google would never make a poor business decision solely to protect consumers, while they could have complied and received no negative media attention for it.

Google has something to hide. Is it something legal or illegal, I wonder? Man...google conspiracy or government conspiracy? My brain hurts now--I'm so glad I'm not a lawyer or Judge!!!

I doubt it's something illegal, but it obviously would affect their competitors in a positive way.

It's been about child porn all along. Use the BN search function. Sort it by date, you may have to scroll a few pages, but it's there unless I am *way* off, and my memory usually isn't quite that bad.

We've all heard so many violations of our right to privacy concerning terrorism lately that I think we're beginning to associate everything with it.

It has NOT been about child porn. Its been about the Goverment wanting the data to defend their argument in court over people being able to access/search for legal adult porn.

Here is your proof:

http://blog.searchengine...ogle_motiontocompel.pdf

I'm so sick of this story being twisted into something else.

Okay. The Child Online Protection Act. You are right, it has nothing to do with Child pornography, and more to do with children's ability to access material online that is not suitable for them.

But that changes this how? It's still the government trying to pass a law that doesn't verge on censorship, but instead wholly enforces it.

Not.
Good.

Seriously, where does the Gov get off telling me what my children can and cannot do? Same with those twits trying to pass the Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA). Idiots. my family. My kids. My responsibility.

NOT YOURS!

I really wish the Gov would just back the hell off and focus on s*** that they actually can and need to fix.

Go here http://www.videogamevoters.org/ and tell your Senatecritters we can raise our own kids.

I commend you for want to raise your own children! That is something that is rare these days.

But the difference between child pornography and a child accessing pornography are wide and not in the same ballpark.

Your children are not with you 100% of the time and the time they are with others and have the ability to obtain this information can become a reality. If so it does happen(and not debating your children) who then do the parents want to go after to sue. We now have added more pressure on the courts and issue that can be handled in a different way.

It isn't censorship. They are only trying to prevent children from accessing porn sites easily. Their access, much like the drinking and driving are age dependent. You are not stating that these laws are censorhip too are you. Because that is the argument you pose.

We can all find fault in many laws, but we need to not look so critical at them and work with them. You have done so with your vow to raise your kids and teach them right from wrong, but let's face it not everyone is in that same boat - like it or not.

Google has put the DOJ in a tough spot, period. This could become a major change in policy regarding Internet Privacy (as was said). Either way--I'm sure it is all Bush's fault :)

This goes back to Hilary, and the current and recent past administration's desire to parent our children for us.

Ya know, instead of enforcing things like reponsible parenting...instead of charging the parents with gross negligence, and manslaughter, let's try the 10yr-old as an adult and put him away for life....

Yeah, that's the way to go.

Idiots.