Liberty's Blog

Google Troubles

Googles been getting a lot of heat lately. The map fiasco , was the sign of things to come. They are under pressure to give up some data, a weeks worth of search information and a million IP addresses to the US government. They scored some points in deciding to give the government a fight. What makes the governments case particularly weak is that it sounds to me thatthey are looking for data to support some particular legislation, not as a part of any specific criminal activity.

``It's our obligation to use the law to the farthest possible means to protect our users' privacy,'' Brin said in an interview yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``It's just a legal and ethical principle.''

Mountain View, California-based Google, the world's most-used Internet search engine, is fighting a Justice Department lawsuit after rejecting a request for samples of search queries from consumers. The government said it needed the data as part of an effort to counter challenges to Internet pornography legislation.

``I don't think we like the precedent of it, and so we're fighting it,'' Brin, 32, said. ``I think we're right.''

I think they are also. Yahoo and Microsoft already rolled over.

Google is defending data that Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have turned over, at least in part. The suit, filed Jan. 18 in federal court in San Jose, California, exacerbated concerns about consumer privacy and the Internet and helped prompt the biggest-ever one-day decline in Google's shares. The Justice Department is seeking one week's worth of Web searches and 1 million addresses in Google's database.

Well in this one they are the good guys, but all the only thing they are risking in this is the legal costs, and they are gaining an image as the champion of privacy. Next thing you know the censoring Chicom search engine fiasco.

The new local Google site, expected to be launched Wednesday at Google.cn, will include notes at the bottom of results pages that disclose when content has been removed, said Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel for Google.

"Google.cn will comply with local Chinese laws and regulations," he said in a statement. "In deciding how best to approach the Chinese--or any--market, we must balance our commitments to satisfy the interest of users, expand access to information, and respond to local conditions."

Google will not initially offer Gmail or Blogger in China until executives feel they can strike that balance adequately, McLaughlin said.

Web surfers in China have had difficulty accessing the Google service, reporting frustratingly slow connections and time-outs, Google said. Human rights groups have accused China's government of blocking access to Web sites that do not adhere to the government's restrictions.

The free world is disapointed. Yet if we look at it rationally Google as a company beholden to its stockholders had to make a decision. Would their refusal have made life any better for the Chinese people, I think most folk would agree that Microsoft and Yahoo! would have agreed to the restrictions pretty easily, and they wouldn't have even got as much critisism. My hope is that there was some deal to loosen the Great Firewall of China on Google.com. If such an agreement wan't made Google will be in a better position to pressure and negotiate loosening it up at least to the google.com domain.

Some bloggers have decided to boycott Google , the Google ad program in particular. While some of those pulling ads are running Google Blogger. The censorship and human rights problems in Red Communist China are deeper than the Google issue. What really should be done is closing all relationships with China with a complete embargo. Google actions may be a dissapointment, but the United States Government giving China the "most favored nation" status as a trading partner is outragous.

posted by Liberty @ 7:59 PM