Bush Administration wants Google Porn Search info

[Bill]

As I understood it, what the feds what to prove with the google data they are demanding is that minors are accessing porn thru google searches.

It's all about the COPA law, which isn't about CP but about censoring porn on the internet so that minors can't access it.

So, they need to identify searchers and prove that minors are finding porn thru google.

[kenny]

Originally Posted by Bill

As I understood it, what the feds what to prove with the google data they are demanding is that minors are accessing porn thru google searches.

It's all about the COPA law, which isn't about CP but about censoring porn on the internet so that minors can't access it.

So, they need to identify searchers and prove that minors are finding porn thru google.

Bingo

Even though the fucking news keeps saying it's for CP - which it's not

[walrus]

Actually, what scares me the most in this...is that the Mercury News is running a survey and a place where people can reply...Reading through the replies its obvious that no one who replied actually took the time to read the article.

[natalie]

An article at Webmasterworld says that Msn and Yahoo have already handed over this data. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/32858.htm

[docholly]

It could be enough to change the 2 red states with the highest level of education being Virginia and Nevada but there's 4 more years of dumbing down Americans with Dubya controlled news. The 18 votes shared between those 2 states makes it a very close race.

Amazingly enough Las Vegas went Blue, but the rest of the state was solid red. Boggles the mind.

Google (and Yahoo) have enough money to fight this, and i'm sure the ACLU will get in too but in the meantime all they need to do is find 2 or 3 17 yr olds who've found "mommy" on the net to make their case.

[Agent]

Originally Posted by natalie

An article at Webmasterworld says that Msn and Yahoo have already handed over this data. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/32858.htm

Yep, Slashdot is reporting this too. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/20/018211

[DJilla]

Originally Posted by natalie

An article at Webmasterworld says that Msn and Yahoo have already handed over this data. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/32858.htm

Actually MSN has released a statement and won't say one way or another whether they did or didn't (my bet is that they did) and Yahoo said they gave the info requested less IP #'s or any other identfying info.

Since I'm on a "censorship post" kick today:

Bush couldn't have picked a better opponent to go up against. Google is going to get a kick ass PR benefit out of the fight and has the deepest pockets to fight it successfully and I'm betting will win. Not only is the request outrageous on its face but its also proprietary information and will never be pried loose since they are not a party to the originating challenge to the law that is being fought. I've said it before: How the American people are not rioting in the streets over the outrageous attacks on privacy by the Bush admin. is completely beyond me.
I look around and wonder "what are you people thinking about?" Nobody seems to even remember that we're in a second war in Afghanistan, oh yeah that's right I mean a third war on drugs, oh yeah also a fourth war on terrorism worldwide, oh yeah and gearing up on Iran and half of South America too... ooops forgot about Sryia

For everybody that wants to know:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Jack Perkins

Can you see a trend?
Can you say globalzation and corporate servitude?

[MadMax]

I personally can't imagine having Hillary Clinton as the next President. If, by some fluke she were to succeed, we'd be in a situation where the same two families had traded off running this country for a period of 20 years between the Bushes and the Clintons. This is not a fucking monarchy, nor is it a dynasty. Time for new blood.

IMO, if Google complies with this order it will be the beginning of the end for them. "Search with Google, tell the Feds everything you do online!" Great marketing slogan.

IPs wouldn't even make for a compelling case study, since it would only be in rare cases that a child was the ONLY person to use a given computer that it would mean anything.

Fucking witch hunt.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by MadMax

This is not a fucking monarchy, nor is it a dynasty. Time for new blood.

You haven't been paying attention the biographies of those running the country. There's a power base that's been handed down from one family member for the last 50 years.

It makes sense for AOL and MSN to hand over the data since they already controll large portions of the conservative news. Yahoo is a bit of a surprise though.

[JoeBlack]

Originally Posted by MadMax

I personally can't imagine having Hillary Clinton as the next President. If, by some fluke she were to succeed, we'd be in a situation where the same two families had traded off running this country for a period of 20 years between the Bushes and the Clintons. This is not a fucking monarchy, nor is it a dynasty. Time for new blood.

IMO, if Google complies with this order it will be the beginning of the end for them. "Search with Google, tell the Feds everything you do online!" Great marketing slogan.

IPs wouldn't even make for a compelling case study, since it would only be in rare cases that a child was the ONLY person to use a given computer that it would mean anything.

Fucking witch hunt.

With al due respect to your opinion I wouldn't care more or less if it was 20 - 40 years with the same families as long as the right family is doing the right thing for our country. There is a big difference between when the clintons ran this country and when the bush family ran it. If we get Hillary Clinton as our president it means we also get Bill as our unofficial Vice President. As far as I am concerned when Bill was president Hillary was the unofficial Vice President so all that means is we would just be getting the band back together for one last tour.

Plus I would rather have the clintons fix what bush has done to our country before we give the country to someone else as it is. Among other things who else is better to deal with the terrorist problems than someone who already knows the players and peaces in the game.

This is just my opinion tho and I hope whichever way the leadership of this country goes they will have a better plan than this one did or should I say didn't.

Either way I wish us all the best.

[Candy]

This is the results of a poll on aol:

Should Google cooperate with the government, turn over records?
No 80%
Yes 20%
Do you use the Internet to search for porn?
No 65%
Yes 35%
Total Votes: 26,318


This is the article:

"Updated: 07:48 AM EST
Google Rebuffs Feds on Search Request
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP


Getty ImagesThe Bush administration wants Google to release 1 million Web addresses and records of searches from any one-week period.

More Coverage:
· Google Stock
· How Big Is Porn?

Talk About It: Post Thoughts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SAN FRANCISCO (Jan. 20) - Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine — a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week — a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yahoo Inc., which runs the Internet's second-most used search engine behind Google, confirmed Thursday that it had complied with a similar government subpoena.

Although the government says it isn't seeking any data that ties personal information to search requests, the subpoena still raises serious privacy concerns, experts said. Those worries have been magnified by recent revelations that the White House authorized eavesdropping on civilian communications after the Sept. 11 attacks without obtaining court approval.

"Search engines now play such an important part in our daily lives that many people probably contact Google more often than they do their own mother," said Thomas Burke, a San Francisco attorney who has handled several prominent cases involving privacy issues.

"Just as most people would be upset if the government wanted to know how much you called your mother and what you talked about, they should be upset about this, too."

The content of search request sometimes contain information about the person making the query.

For instance, it's not unusual for search requests to include names, medical profiles or Social Security information, said Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum.

"This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search engines for some time," Dixon said. "Google should be commended for fighting this."

Every other search engine served similar subpoenas by the Bush administration has complied so far, according to court documents. The cooperating search engines weren't identified.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo stressed that it didn't reveal any personal information. "We are rigorous defenders of our users' privacy," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said Thursday. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue."

Microsoft Corp. MSN, the No. 3 search engine, declined to say whether it even received a similar subpoena. "MSN works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested," the company said in a statement.

As the Internet's dominant search engine, Google has built up a valuable storehouse of information that "makes it a very attractive target for law enforcement," said Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The Department of Justice argues that Google's cooperation is essential in its effort to simulate how people navigate the Web.

In a separate case in Pennsylvania, the Bush administration is trying to prove that Internet filters don't do an adequate job of preventing children from accessing online pornography and other objectionable destinations.

Obtaining the subpoenaed information from Google "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current Web users, (and) to estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches," the Justice Department wrote in a brief filed Wednesday

Google — whose motto when it went public in 2004 was "do no evil" — contends that submitting to the subpoena would represent a betrayal to its users, even if all personal information is stripped from the search terms sought by the government.

"Google's acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept," company attorney Ashok Ramani wrote in a letter included in the government's filing.

Complying with the subpoena also wound threaten to expose some of Google's "crown-jewel trade secrets," Ramani wrote. Google is particularly concerned that the information could be used to deduce the size of its index and how many computers it uses to crunch the requests.

"This information would be highly valuable to competitors or miscreants seeking to harm Google's business," Ramani wrote.

Dixon is hoping Google's battle with the government reminds people to be careful how they interact with search engines.

"When you are looking at that blank search box, you should remember that what you fill can come back to haunt you unless you take precautions," she said.


1/20/09



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Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. "

Here is the link to this article:

http://articles.news.aol.com/busines...00010000000001

[Candy]

RawAlex, didn't see your thread on this upon first glance at the board. GG, sorry, you can delete this one...

Have a great day

[kenny]

MSN and Yahoo already forked over their data

[RawAlex]

Sleeper, actually, I think they are trying to prove that minors COULD access free porn and pictures. Take the top searches in a week, assume that even 1% of the are made by minors, look at the sites that were visited... did they have adult warnings before showing hardcore porn?

TGPs and MGPs are in a pretty tough place because most of them have midcore to hardcore images or ads right on page 1 without a single hint of a warning or other... no landing pages. Those sites are the ones in my mind that would be used to show "how easy it is to get hardcore porn online".

Can you see where this is headed? COPA3? Adult meta tags on every pages and all browsers ordered to support it?

Hmm.

Alex

[kenny]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Sleeper, actually, I think they are trying to prove that minors COULD access free porn and pictures. Take the top searches in a week, assume that even 1% of the are made by minors, look at the sites that were visited... did they have adult warnings before showing hardcore porn?

TGPs and MGPs are in a pretty tough place because most of them have midcore to hardcore images or ads right on page 1 without a single hint of a warning or other... no landing pages. Those sites are the ones in my mind that would be used to show "how easy it is to get hardcore porn online".

Can you see where this is headed? COPA3? Adult meta tags on every pages and all browsers ordered to support it?

Hmm.

Alex

I know that.

But, the morning news shows had people on saying that the reason for this was to combat child p0rn - which is totally bogus

[kenny]

The courts already decided this age verification thing isn't a good idea.

You can't enforce it. The internet is a global thing.

The court said filtering software was better means to prevent minors from accessing online porn.

They are right - I don't know why the federal government insist on appealing this.

Even if they eventually win it won't work.

If parents were worried about it they would use filtering software. I can see softcore porn all day long on HBO and cinemax.

Hell it's probably on network TV.

Explicit lyrics that suggest hardcore sex acts is in every other song kids listen to these days.

Parents need to parent there children if it's such a huge concern.

Do you want to know what fucks us in the long run?

These fucking spammers stuffing fucking porn emails in every other twelve year old's inbox.

The fuckers hijacking computers and forcing porn popups.. Some guy could surf porn one day and the next day his children are being redirected to a bisexual midget website.

The fuckers who buy domain names that have nothing to do with porn and make them porn sites *cough* - whitehouse.com

AOL/Yahoo fucking chatroom spammers - take a wild guess of the average age of people who go to chatrooms

See we have all these people pissing everybody off and it's making it hard for all of us.

This would never have been a issue if you had to actually look for porn opposed to having it shoved down your throat.

Now the government is increasingly combating this thing and they don't know what the hell they are doing. They are just going to fuck the honest webmasters.

[Linkster]

Yall need to read the actual filing motion to get the info from Google.

The reason the government is doing this is because they were told back when COPA was at the appeals level that they could get the decision reversed if they came back with hard data that showed access to free stuff was available - and that is the whole basis for this action - the government hasnt ever accepted the ruling and they intend to go back to the court this year and get it reversed.
As far as I can see from the actual rulings back when COPA was reversed the government already has enough to do it if they have Yahoo and MSN's data - and we should all be forced into warning pages with AVS entrances and labelling within the year since no one on the adult side is really fighting this battle anymore. Google's data would just be icing on the cake if they were to get a judge to sign off on this new request to force Google to comply (which will probably happen within a week).

No Im not one of those sky is falling people - Ive just taken the time to read the entire filings and looks pretty open and shut that COPA will go through this time with no problem since ACLU and the others that were originally involved seem to have pulled out

[kenny]

What if a simple "warning" page isn't adequate.

Then what?

What if they draw it up where you have to use a credit card to see any porn.

The US webmasters will be fucked.

[plateman]

Originally Posted by sleeper

The courts already decided this age verification thing isn't a good idea.

You can't enforce it. The internet is a global thing.

The court said filtering software was better means to prevent minors from accessing online porn.

They are right - I don't know why the federal government insist on appealing this.

Even if they eventually win it won't work.

If parents were worried about it they would use filtering software. I can see softcore porn all day long on HBO and cinemax.

Hell it's probably on network TV.

Explicit lyrics that suggest hardcore sex acts is in every other song kids listen to these days.

Parents need to parent there children if it's such a huge concern.

Do you want to know what fucks us in the long run?

These fucking spammers stuffing fucking porn emails in every other twelve year old's inbox.

The fuckers hijacking computers and forcing porn popups.. Some guy could surf porn one day and the next day his children are being redirected to a bisexual midget website.

The fuckers who buy domain names that have nothing to do with porn and make them porn sites *cough* - whitehouse.com

AOL/Yahoo fucking chatroom spammers - take a wild guess of the average age of people who go to chatrooms

See we have all these people pissing everybody off and it's making it hard for all of us.

This would never have been a issue if you had to actually look for porn opposed to having it shoved down your throat.

Now the government is increasingly combating this thing and they don't know what the hell they are doing. They are just going to fuck the honest webmasters.

100% agreed the cheaters and spammers have ruined everything in life from insurrance to the internet...

[RawAlex]

Interestingly, Cambria's testimony seemed to be as much centered on "rating systems" as anything else. I think that a modified COPA that would require (a) the adult industry to use a meta tag or similar that states "adult content" (not IRCA or whatever, as it is insanely burdonsome to register each individual HTML pages and to put these individual codes into pages) and that (b) the browser manufactures might be legally obliged to filter based on that tag.

The real question I guess comes down to the unlock mechanism. Some have suggested that individual ISPs might be responsible to "allow" adult content on a per user basis, but that would seem to be both extreme and likely to be found to unduly restrict free speech (indivudal ISPs could make it almost impossible to access adult material, or for religeous or personal reasons decline to allow access to any adult material). It would also make it a free for all for all states, which could possibly enforce community standards in the types of sites permitted or not, which would effectively block all porn.

A simple meta tag "rating" with value = "ADULT" or value = "XXX" or 14+, 18+ NA/AO or whatever there system is (matching to Vchip, example) would certainly go a long way towards making our industry look smart.

Alex

[troy]

Nice new moves of the bush administration.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/softwar...9234228,00.htm

I find this part very disturbing:

"The Bush administration's request is tied to its defence of the Child Online Protection Act, which restricts the posting of sexually explicit material deemed "harmful to minors" on commercial Web sites, unless it's unavailable to minors"

In the matter of privacy consern google is also part of the problem.

"Google has a massive database that reaches into the most intimate details of your life," he said. "What you are searching for, what you are reading, what you are worried about, what you enjoy. People should be able to use modern tools like search engines without the fear of Big Brother looking over their shoulder."

What is your opinion?

[natalie]

My opinion is we already have a thread about this lol

[troy]

ooooppss, didn't know it was that old

[T Pat]

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebu...124google.html


Internet
Why Google Won't Give In
Chris Kraeuter and Rachel Rosmarin, 01.24.06, 6:00 AM ET


BURLINGAME, CALIF. - Microsoft has a message for consumers who use its search engine: Don't worry, your stuff is safe.

Any information the computer giant hands over as a result of a U.S. Department of Justice subpoena will contain "absolutely no personal data," according to a statement posted on a company blog over the weekend by Ken Moss, general manager of MSN Web Search. "Privacy of our customers is non-negotiable and something worth fighting to protect. We tried to strike the right balance in a very sensitive matter."

Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) assurances follow those from Time Warner's (nyse: TWX - news - people ) America Online and Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), which said much the same thing last week. So why is Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) the lone holdout?

Perhaps the company really is worried about protecting your privacy. Much more likely: It is worried about protecting itself.

The federal government's requests--which amount to a list of 1 million random Web addresses and a week's worth of search queries--is supposed to help the government build a case that Internet porn is readily accessible to minors, thus creating a need for its once-denied Child Online Protection Act (COPA).

Google's claim that the subpoenas could reveal trade secrets is up for debate. Aitan Goelman, partner with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder, says he doubts the data the government is looking for would reveal how Google executes its searches. But he adds that a clever competitor could sift through the reports and might "be able to get from Point A to Point B and have insight into Google's methodologies."

It's more likely that Google is worried about the results of its search queries and not the technology that powers them. The compromise the Department of Justice has worked out with Google's rivals calls for the search engines to let the government see how often certain search terms were used, but won't let it look up specific Internet Protocol addresses to what individuals looked for.

That alone could prove embarrassing enough for Google. A public disclosure of exactly how much pornography is on the Internet and how often people look for it--the two data points that will result from fulfilling the government's subpoena--could serve to make the Internet look bad. And Google, as its leading search engine, could look the worst.

None of the search engines make a full disclosure of how much porn users are looking at. When America Online lists its most popular searches, for instance, porn references are scrubbed out. But Nielsen/NetRatings says that porn sites attracted 38 million unique viewers in December--or a quarter of all Internet surfers.

Google and its competitors all benefit from porn sites, which help generate search queries and page views. But Google is the only portal company that makes nearly all of its revenue from click-through advertising. Restricting porn and porn advertising--the likely aim of COPA's sponsors--could hurt Google disproportionately.

And filtering in general would also hurt Google more than its competitors. The Google brand is built on the notion that the engine gives users the clearest picture of the Web, without playing favorites. Restricting content in any way could hurt Google's carefully burnished image, its 60% market share for search queries and its share price.

Want to track news by this author or about this industry? Forbes Attache makes it easy. Click here.

[kenny]

Thats a damn good article.

I think there is alot of truth there