Government Seeks Google's Data - US Attorney General filed a legal motion

atomicnacho

Jan 20 2006, 02:03 PM

Recently, in what is labeled an attempt to help prevent children from accessing internet pornography, the Bush administration has tried to get their hands on data from google. The feds are apparently after data from a specific week as well as a bunch of randomly generated web addresses.

Here is a link to the latest Yahoo! News article about it. Interestingly enough, the article states that Yahoo has previously given similar information to the government.

So far Google is refusing to hand over the requested information.

I think that this whole deal is a blatent breech of our privacy. The government has no business with our internet searching habits. And as far as I'm concerned it also isn't their place to police children on the internet.

Inspiron

Jan 20 2006, 02:35 PM

So Google respected its consumers' rights of privacy? I think that's a good move from Google to stay in good reputation and go along with its terms and conditions. Probably only users who misused the search engine to break the law or carry out a criminal act, Google would more than willing to submit information to repective authorities..

dontmaimyourself

Jan 20 2006, 11:19 PM

Firstly I must say that this doesn't really concern me all that much (not yet anyway), me not being American and all, but yeah I will also have to say that this is clearly a breach of privicy and civil liberties. However I must also say that I highly doubt the American 'Government' really cares and if they want this information they will get it eventually. I am also going to agree with you atomicnacho (great name btw) that it has absolutely nothing to do with the government what people search the internet for. It turns out that AOL and MSN were also more than happy to hand over some information regarding search logs (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060119-060352)

Richard

Jan 20 2006, 11:34 PM

i dont think that is fair that the government is making google send in their search history. but they are doing it for a good reason but still thats not fair. Boooo US GOVERNMENT lol

Albus Dumbledore

Jan 21 2006, 02:08 AM

child pornography...please who really cares, they shouldn't be snoopng around in peoples internet life..so what if they look at child porno..lol its good that goodle is refusing it tho >_<

BuffaloHELP

Jan 21 2006, 02:16 AM

Including http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060120/bs_af...cs_060120150027 and many other articles... (and broken link in this post http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?sho...dpost&p=222601)

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is seeking what Google has been searching for people. According to CBS News, the detailed information requests are some 1 million random URL's that Google searched on the web for internet users and about 1 million searched key phrases and the results of those searched, in one randomly picked week. US A.G. is promising that what the investigation isn't looking for is user's individual personal records. The full investigation comes in conjunction to the Child Online Protection Act to prevent people exchanging such criminal photos or information.

The current justification is that when the key phrase "sex sites" is entered to Google's search bar, about 65 million sites are returned in matter of few tenths of a second. Now, I'm sure they are not all child porn related but among those 65 millions, the worry is that one or two might be the one. The 65 million result was the rough estimated this morning at 6am (GMT-5) and the time this post was made it only showed 62 million results. I'm sure Google started to sift through some of their results and started to filter as much as they can.

Sizux

Jan 21 2006, 02:35 AM

That's stupid. Seriously.

I think it's completely pointless to request search records just because "sex sites" where searched up. Face it; kids are bound to get into that stuff, no matter what people do.

Thank god Google is refusing to hand over the results. What could the goverment possible do? Close down Google? (That’s a serious question) Maybe I do not understand this article completely, but if what I'm thinking is true, then this is very stupid.

fffanatics

Jan 21 2006, 04:27 AM

OK no matter what year it is, when an adolescent wants to get / see pornography, they can always find a way if they really want it. You know, it used to be the dirty mags under the bed and such. Now, it just is a bookmark on the computer. No matter what, parents always catch them at one point in time and they get over it. I know its illegal and all but face it, kids could be getting into way worse things that can mentally and physically mess them up way more.

Finally, google definitely is doing the right thing by refusing to give the results to the government. Under no circumstances does the government legally have to right to view a companies data when they themselves are not doing anything illegal and are in a legal dispute because of it. Therefore, google has every right to keep that data to themselves and not share it.

Domthedude001

Feb 16 2006, 12:00 AM

I think it is good that Google isnt sending their user's search results to the government. However, if they were somehow forced too, or they get shut down... each (registered) user has search history.. unless they diside to pause it.

Albus Dumbledore

Feb 16 2006, 12:45 AM

well, it would seem that the goverment is seking to destroy the internet...first they modify allot of wikepedia.org 's information with false or different information, and now they want to know what we are searching for lmao kind of makes me wonder what this world is coming to...whatever happened to a free country?

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grnjd

May 27 2006, 04:58 AM

Its a good move by google. Not only will the consumers be able to trust google and give google their personal info, they will also use more of google's features knowing that google will be responsible for all their private info...which may be good or bad

dazappa

May 27 2006, 12:46 AM

Well as far as I know, the government can't make google hand over the information. But even so probably 80% of the U.S. uses google so they really want that information. I think it would just be a waste of their time, especially because the logs would be amazingly huge. I sometimes wonder why google even keeps that information, or if they will just start collecting information if somehow the government finds a way to do so. They might as well search in google and see if any bad sites popup. Can they even make google stop having those sights come up?

Absolute

May 27 2006, 12:09 AM

Lets face it...I'm all for protecting our rights. I do it for a living and i'd die to protect them. The first thing is that a parent should know what their child is doing at all times on a computer. I'm sorry but the world is too dangerous now adays not to invest that time to knowing. But to play devils advocate here what do we have to worry about if they do hand the records over??? I mean unless your a child predator then you dont have to worry about anything. They are going after the child predators and criminals. Its those people that try to get everyone thinking that our civil rights will be taking away if we let them do that. Come on. If it protects my child the go ahead. I got nothing to worry about.

Zabb

May 26 2006, 09:52 PM

If all they where interested in was busting child porn they should be requesting info from the porn sites not google. Although I think its sick and the people that look for that stuff should be shot the government should find better ways to enforce the laws. besides after they bust someone they do community service at a school.
I'll look for the article but it actually happened.

if they want to bust porn sites search google for porn find the sites trace ips find the isp's then request w/ a warrent information on the people distibuting these files. they have no problem whatso ever finding the people uploading MI3 and the divinci code.

and lastly if they really want google's search records they should search google you can find anything that way.

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