Google VS the U.S. government

[Dr_Demento]

I'm sure you've heard about it by now. The US govt. subpoened MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Google for records showing all the websites that will show up on searches and the search terms people looked for from June 1st to July 1st.

Google was the only one who refused, siting that it was a privacy issue.  The govt. claims it needs the info to test the ability of search filters to keep porn out of the searches when a child is using the site. (the reason depends on which article you use, this was just one of them)
No i.p. numbers or any identifying information was requested, just search terms and web sites.

what do you think? Should google be fighting this or not?


personally, I wonder what would happen if it wasn't fought, and then later the government came back and said, "ok, we want ip's numbers for everyone who searched for this term"  and can't they just hire a guy to sit and try out the search engines all day, that would tell them how good the filters work  Do they really have to make a multi million doolar project of it? 

[Andy]

I support google in standing up against them. Just because people typed some words into a search engine didn't always mean they wanted to access a site on that subject. They may do it for fun to load the keyword stats with really bizarre search terms and have a laugh at the search results list or they may be google whacking.

Also, children will not be searching on terms leading them to the undesirable search results and less likely to actually click on the links.

I found a blog once where the blog master was posting all kinds of weird phrases just to get hits. I forget which weird phrase I used to find the site 

[donecweb]

I support Google in their refusal to provide the information. Mostly be cause I don't believe the US government has any right to be testing such things, as it has nothing to do with national security but has every thing to do with family and the obligation of parents to control their children the way they feel is best and not necessarily the way some bureaucrat thinks it should be.

[Queen Bee]

I agree with the two statements made above mine. I'm glad to see Google has the interest of their users at heart. Besides, we have websites like KidsClick! and Ask Jeeves for Kids specifically targeted for searches made by children. Not to mention voluntary rating systems like SafeSurf and ICRA that prevent children from viewing sites that are not directly authorized by their services. Filtering software like CyberPatrol will always be ineffective because they filter out the good along with the bad, and sometimes they don't catch all of the bad any way. Any informed parent can keep their child from viewing inappropriate content with the right tools and websites.

"...As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn."

Another way of saying the outcome justifies the deed...
I hope I don't sound ignorant here, this is just my take on it.

[TexasLady]

IMHO the government is interfering in toooooo many ways with our privacy.    More and more the govt seems to be taking over censorship; a right and responsibility that belongs to parents.    More and more the parents are neglecting this responsibility as the schools, welfare and government agencies assume more of them.

It's a frightening thought for our future.    I'm so glad that not all parents are neglecting their kids' moral and ethical standards and that there are ways the kids can be stopped from viewing unwholesome sites.    I just wish more parents took advantage of them.   Apparently the teenage chate sites are becoming very dangerous for many.