Google: Enemy of freedom
What can you say about a search engine that refuses to give the U.S. government the time of day, but is only too happy to cave in to the demands of the tyrannical, repressive dictators in Beijing?
About all you can say is "Google."
In case you haven't followed it, last week Google refused to hand over data on search patterns to the U.S. Justice Department in an investigation into child pornography.
Google cited the privacy of its users, but the U.S. government is not looking for details about personal usage – only for search patterns that would show the effectiveness of anti-porn filters. The government is trying to prove that minors could stumble on to child-porn websites by accident by entering quite innocent search terms. Its lawyers say that for its case to be tested, it needs a sample of actual searches.
Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN and America Online all agreed to cooperate, insisting they would not hand over data that identified individual users. But Google, whose name has become synonymous with searches, refuses.
That was last week – and that was a seemingly reasonable request by the U.S. government. This week, however, concerns about big-government intrusion went out the window at Google.
When the brutes in Beijing asked Google to censor its search results in China in exchange for more access to the world's fastest-growing Internet market, the search giant caved in without protest.
Joseph Farah
About all you can say is "Google."
In case you haven't followed it, last week Google refused to hand over data on search patterns to the U.S. Justice Department in an investigation into child pornography.
Google cited the privacy of its users, but the U.S. government is not looking for details about personal usage – only for search patterns that would show the effectiveness of anti-porn filters. The government is trying to prove that minors could stumble on to child-porn websites by accident by entering quite innocent search terms. Its lawyers say that for its case to be tested, it needs a sample of actual searches.
Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN and America Online all agreed to cooperate, insisting they would not hand over data that identified individual users. But Google, whose name has become synonymous with searches, refuses.
That was last week – and that was a seemingly reasonable request by the U.S. government. This week, however, concerns about big-government intrusion went out the window at Google.
When the brutes in Beijing asked Google to censor its search results in China in exchange for more access to the world's fastest-growing Internet market, the search giant caved in without protest.
Joseph Farah
posted by Anonymous | 2:22 PM
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