Feds want Major Search Engine search records

[mandy]

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

full article: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/silicon...657386.htm

related topic: Google Searches Used Against Suspect In Murder Trial http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...257.0.html

[mandy]

update:

DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes.
Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the company to do so.

Another fact to consider as you sift through news coverage: Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument that the Child Online Protection Act is constitutionally sound.

...Privacy advocates I spoke to today, including attorney Sherwin Siy at EPIC, say while the DoJ's request would not identify individual users, the scope and nature of this request sets a troubling precedent.

full article: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/19/_do...uests.html

[Kristijntje]

The news that major search engine operators Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division and America Online Inc. complied with a U.S. government subpoena that Google  Inc. is resisting has prompted strong reactions from Internet users on both sides of the issue.

Many users are expressing anger at what they perceive to be a governmental intrusion and an unwillingness by search engines to protect their privacy. Others feel the brouhaha is much ado about nothing.

full article: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/2...ena_1.html

Some Yahoo and Microsoft MSN users are vowing to boycott the companies.

In addition to this latest incident, both companies have been in the news recently for their willingness to help China enforce its policy of human rights violations (see this topic for more information on Yahoo and Microsoft in China http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...ml#msg7595)

[mandy]

Related opinion piece on the increasing loss of individual privacy in the digital age:

Google knows a lot more about your personal life than you think. Oh, and so do hackers and the State . . .

SELF-AVOWAL is invariably the toughest of the 12 recovery steps. So here, gratifyingly, let me publicly confess: I Was A Guardian Journalist. Having submitted to a searching personal moral inventory, I admit, to God and myself, to having swallowed the entire liberal schtick, from the presumption of corporate irresponsibility to the grinding paranoia about Big Brother surveillance. It is therefore disconcerting, just as I was finally re-integrating into mainstream society, to find Google’s fight with the US Justice Department provoking an almighty storm over web users’ fast-eroding privacy rights. At the risk of relapsing, may I now convince you that they really are out to get us?

The truth is that Google can never be trusted to protect your personal information. As ever more aspects of our lives are conducted through electronic databases, it is safe only to assume that your internet search history, your email trail, even some of your physical movements are being logged by organisations that care little about your privacy. As your data trail grows, its value increases to any hacker or petty bureaucrat who is motivated to trawl...

full article: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/arti...82,00.html

[xppman]

I'd say "privacy" in the electronic era is really a moot point.

From what you purchased at the store to were you traveled and the hotel
you stayed in overnight. To where you surfed online, who you e mailed
and what you said in a cell phone or even land line conversation for that matter.
Someone may and certainly does have access to that information.

If using a debt or credit card or any electronic means, your information
and movements are surely available.

We may not have anything to hide and hide we will not. 

[Kristijntje]

An update:

The U.S. Justice Department is arguing that Google's privacy concerns are not reason enough for it to withhold search records being sought by investigators, likely setting the stage for a court battle over the data. In a court filing made late Friday, the Bush administration said because individual users would not be identified in the records being sought, the privacy concerns are not valid. The argument comes after Google initially rebuffed the government's demands to turn over the records of search requests...

The government's filing included an affidavit from University of California at Berkeley statistics professor Philip B. Stark, who said the privacy concerns are misplaced, especially given that the original request called for Google to strip any identifying information...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/J7830uy3...alid.xhtml

[mandy]

Google has already set itself apart from its major competitors by refusing to comply with the order voluntarily, search engine marketing expert John Battelle told the E-Commerce Times. "Even if it's forced to comply by the courts, Google can point to how it tried to stand up for its users' privacy," he said...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/8twGNTCx...oena.xhtml

Judge to help feds against Google

A federal judge hearing arguments in the Department of Justice's records fight with Google said Tuesday that he would grant federal prosecutors at least part of their request for excerpts from the search giant's massive database.

U.S. District Judge James Ware said he intends to release his decision "very quickly," and that he might give the Justice Department access to a portion of Google's index of Web sites, but not to its users' search terms...

full article: http://news.com.com/Judge+to+help+feds+a...49493.html