The present government is demanding records from Google on the online search activity of millions of Americans, folks who are presumably, law abiding. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo caved in and complied with what many are calling an invasion of privacy of unprecedented proportions.

Here are but a few links to more on the subpoena story :
http://news.com.com/2300-1028_3-6028780-1.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6029348.html
http://ideas.4brad.com/node/339

In a quote from the last link, we find this.

"The DoJ experts in the COPA online porn case want to mine Google’s logs, not for anybody’s data in particular, but because they are such a great repository of statistics on internet activity. Google is fighting hard as they should. Apparently several Google competitors caved in.

These logs are a treasure trove of information, just as the DoJ experts say they are. No wonder they want them. They are particularly valuable to Google, of course, so much so that they have resisted all calls to wipe them or anonymize them. In fact, Google has built a fancy system with its own custom computer language to do massively parallel computing to let it gather statistics from this giant pool of data.

The DoJ and the companies that didn’t fight the order insist there is no personally identifiable information in these logs, but that’s certainly not true of the source logs. Even if you remove the Google account cookie that is now sent with most people’s queries, the IP address is recorded. I have a static IP address myself on my DSL. It’s always the same, and so it would be easy to extract all my searches, which include some pretty confidential stuff, things like me entering the names of medicines I have been prescribed."

This brings up a point that I have tried to stress for some time. The RIAA, MPAA, and others depend on getting activity logs that finger the individual IP addresses of people.

Some time ago, there was a movement by some small ISPs to promote the practice among other providers, of not keeping any more logs on internet activity than absolutely necessary, and of initiating a practice of regularly purging these files on a regular basis as a part of their pattern and practice of business.

Now, there is a movement to introduce legislation that may help in this regard.

From http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1147526&tw=wn_wire_story
"BILL TO BE INTRODUCED

But others were not reassured. Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey, the ranking Democrat on the telecommunications subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he would introduce a bill to strengthen consumers' Internet privacy by prohibiting the storage of personally identifiable information Internet searches beyond a reasonable time.

"Internet search engines provide an extraordinary service, but the preservation of that service does not rely on a bottomless, timeless database that can do great damage despite good intentions," Markey said.

Chris Jay Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center worried that the government could follow up its initial request with a demand for more information.

"If Google hands over the search logs and the Justice Department finds search strings like 'child porn' or 'naked children,' could they not then go back and ask Google for the user's Internet address?" he said.

Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology said he was glad Google was fighting the case but the company needed to make privacy a more fundamental part of its products. He said the case was a wake-up call to all Internet users that information was being collected on them all the time and was stored indefinitely."

I am all for this idea.

With all the recent news of warrantless searches and syping, we are definitely seeing an erosion of personal privacy, and I see this as one more step into monitoring of your activity online.

I believe we should all write our congresspeople and urge them to oppose this sort of draconian demands for the online activity of presumed, law abiding Americnas. One avenue of writing your congressman or congresswoman is at http://www.congress.org

Just my take.
~Code
http://www.boycott-mpaa.com

Three key values for Americans to earnestly contend for:

1) One of the tenets of democracy is the insistence upon the widest possible degree of individual freedom.
2) Society should demand that their government "secure the blessings of liberty", NOT secure an unwarranted base of power by intruding into the personal lives of its private citizens.
3) A nation that sacrifices liberty for security will ultimately have neither.

Political leaders need to be reminded often about these things. Are they hearing them?

The BBC mis-reported this incident, so Google's reputation in the UK is down a bit - the news here didn't make any great errors, but ambiguously said that Google was being subpoened for 'evidence related to child-pornography prosicution.' Which is, technicly, true. But it gives the impression that Google is withholding vital evidence needed to arrest some of the most hated people on the internet, rather than withholding evidence needed by Bush to reinstate a law that was struck down as unconstitutional.

Child pornography can only ever be a one sided debate in poltics:
"Our children are under threat from the internet perverts! Legislate!"
"Look, im all for combatting child porn, but can you really sacrifice the freedoms on -"
"PERVERT SUPPORTER! KILL HIM!"

I'm glad you posted this story, Code. I've read a few stories about it, including this article from the Washington Post:

"The Justice Department may have done us all a big favor by issuing subpoenas to Internet search engines to find out what people are researching online.

Not because that data could help shield children from online porn, which was the government's stated goal in demanding data from Google and three other search firms.

Rather, the request -- and Google's refusal to fork over its search data -- is putting a helpful public spotlight on the vast amount of personal information being stored, parsed and who knows what else by the Web services we increasingly rely on to manage our lives."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10952497/

The same thing has been said about the personal info that kids are posting on sites like MySpace.

Well, our children ARE under threat from internet perverts. Apparently you don't read the other news, Mr. Bubble-head.

Of course, this google subpoena has nothing to do with finding and prosecuting said pervs. This is just a list of searches, devoid of personal identifying information, if the news I've heard is correct. From this list they hope to determine the frequency with which a child, searching innocently, might encounter age-inappropriate material.

First, the government's methodology is wholly inadequate to the task. If they wanted to find the information they are looking for, they should just do some google searches themselves. It would tell them more than the data they are asking from google. Another branch of government has already undertaken such a study.

Second, google is resisting this on the basis of not wanting to give away trade secrets, not on the basis of protecting customers' privacy.

In the end, nobody ends up looking very good here, when the facts are known. Least of all the child-porn-loving pervs. Yes, they are out there. They come "right out at you," in 3D. (cue wolf howl)

Hey, auto. Did you read the article about how big the internet porn business is? Very interesting article.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10952475/from/RSS/

"The standoff has resonated in the online world not only because of its privacy implications, but because it goes to the heart of what has spurred the Internet to such prodigious growth. Online pornography, a $2.5 billion business and growing rapidly, pioneered such now-commonplace practices as streaming video, trading files and making online purchases. By comparison, sales of music downloads totaled $1.1 billion last year.

It's an old joke that every new technology is driven by porn: A big attraction for digital cameras, some hold, was the ability to take bedroom photos without having to take film to the snickering teenagers at the corner photo shop. And a force behind the rapid spread of VCR and, later, DVD sales was the ability to watch blue movies without being seen at a theater."

I didn't say there was no threat to children - I just said that the threat is exagerated, and that the situation is politically one-sided. Any action performed 'for the children' is immune to criticism - no matter how ineffective it is, or how severe the unintended consequences.

Google could give the information without risking trade secrets. And without risking user privacy. But there are other reasons - for one, if they just give the government whatever it asks for, the demands wont stop. It would be subpoena after subpoena, and the government feeling entitled to whatever it wanted. For another, the information was being used to support COPA - a law which is hardly in Google's interests, amounting essentially to a conservatives' Big Club with which to threaten sites they disapprove of - and could Google image search be considered a porn service? Its not intended as one, but it can be used as such. For another, they have managed to improve their reputation a bit amoung the technical community, comprised mostly of people who value privacy very highly, are opposed to COPA and strong supporters of freedom of speech, and distrust the government in general.

You can add me to the list of those who mistrust government.

Ever notice how governmental intrusion makes headway under the guise of endeavors such as security (war on 'tare-ism') and decency (combating child porn)?
The push for additional throttling of personal liberties seems to have some determined navigators at the helm.

Big Brother craves to get bigger and bigger.
(Thomas Jefferson, I wish you could come back to life and go to bat for us embattled libertarians who believe that the best government is that which governs the least.)

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1078666.php/Yahoo_MS_No_personal_data_surrendered
"WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Yahoo and Microsoft say they did not turn over any private information to the government when they complied with a subpoena.

Google has refused to comply with the demand to supply six months of search data. The Justice Department is seeking the information in an effort to revive the Child Online Protection Act, which was overturned two years ago by the Supreme Court, by determining whether filtering software does the job of keeping children away from hardcore porn sites.

Both Microsoft and Yahoo say that they provided data that contained nothing that would allow the government to identify specific users of their search engines, the San Jose Mercury News reported."

Uh-huh.... CODE!! thanks, bro, for the updates!!

"Both Microsoft and Yahoo say that they provided data that contained nothing that would allow the government to identify specific users of their search engines, the San Jose Mercury News reported."

Just because it's been reported as such doesn't mean I'm automatically buying into it.
I still maintain there exist identifiable aspects for any seriously inclined supercomputer user to pursue.
(And the basement of the White House HAS a few of those types of machines, too, I might add.)

"It's an old joke that every new technology is driven by porn"

Yes, we must have gone to the moon in 1969 to look for naked aliens.

"Any action performed 'for the children' is immune to criticism - no matter how ineffective it is, or how severe the unintended consequences."

Well, this action certainly has been widely criticized. It appears to be a pointless intrusion in privacy to me. But government is foolish, whether it is trying to stop drugs, stop porn, or end poverty. It is pretty near bloody useless.

Agreed. But one thing it IS jolly well pretty "good" at is intruding into citizens' lives and jeopardizing personal liberties.

"From this list they hope to determine the frequency with which a child, searching innocently, might encounter age-inappropriate material."

To even suggest that this has any merit makes no sense to me. Are they presuming to know how crafty children can be? What about mis-types? Do children participate in this effort in any way at all or are they just assuming that they know best? If they wanted to know about the filters they'd ask for the filter code, not the searches users throw at it. If they were in any way concerned with children viewing questionable material they'd ask search engines to close their doors to open access and instead switch to an user/account system requiring proof of age (ss#) and attach an TOS, encrypted key or digital signature. This is nothing but an invasion of privacy and a waste of tax-payers dollars.

Tinker35 makes some good points.

Well, some background information on COPA.

1. COPA is intended to 'protect' children from porn. That doesn't mean its to protect them from pedophiles, or from people making child-porn. In conservative-talk, 'protecting children from porn' means ensuring they dont see any.

The act came out of concern that children were being exposed to porn, both through actively seeking it and accidential exposure. It mandated the use of filtering software in schools and public libraries, and imposed various restrictions on internet porn services.

2. It wouldn't work fully. Oh, it would reduce the amount of porn children are accidentially exposed to, very slightly. But the only porn companies that would respect the restrictions are those who are ethical enough not to spam every address they can get hold of. Those arn't the problem. Its the non-US spamming sites that are the worst.

3. Conservatives hate porn. Ive asked many why this is, and recieved various answers, but it all seems to come down to porn being a corrupting immoral influence that they consider inherently evil. They dont consider it protected free speech in any way, and enjoy exchanging stories of people whose lives have been ruined, marrages broken, money stolen and educations wasted due to 'addiction'.

COPA was struck down as an unreasonable infringement on free speech - but the ruling made it clear that the court thought children should be 'protected' from porn if their parents wished it, through the use of private filters. The objective of this new appeal (How they appeal a Supreme ruling I have no idea) is to demonstrate that filters are not 100% effective, and thus that COPA is required to protect these children.

Should COPA become law, I imagine the first evidence of its use will be in various example cases against prominent porn sites, and a lot of trivial cases when anti-porn crusaders want a generic club with which to attack anyone they disagree with. It would not surprise me at all if one of them took on Google Image Search, though I wouldn't expect them to win.

Google is in the news again today about filtering web searches:

"Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. said its decision to launch a sanitized version of its famed search engine using China's ".cn" suffix was aimed at reaching China's massive Internet audience. It defended the move as a trade-off.

The new site, launched on Wednesday, omits independent Web sites from searches about human rights, Tibet and other topics sensitive to Beijing. Instead users are directed only to Web sites espousing the government's views on such issues.

One prominent human rights advocate, U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, said it was "astounding" that Google, whose company motto is "Don't Be Evil," would cooperate with such censorship "just to make a buck."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1543251

On the surface, Lachatte, I would agree.. but I dunno.. Google may be getting a foot in the door now, get established, and who knows??

http://www.google-watch.org/

I personally use GMail, after initially being wary of using it. It is my favorite email client. But, they probably will keep every email I send til long after I'm dead.

'Tis hard to escape the clutches of Big Brother.

Even the newsletter of a far-right Christnut lobbying group I monitor mentioned the incident - in the way they usually completly misrepresent the facts, they used the excuse to portrey google as defending pedophiles and went on a rant. I know that everything that comes from their pseudo-news source is a combination of nonsense, political mudslinging and insults against every group except themselves - but there are still many people who agree with them, and will accept their story as true.

I wonder if this has anything to do with it all... (is it "tin-foil hat" time?)
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US plans to 'fight the net' revealed --BBC News