This week saw contention between Google and the US Department of Justice, as the Bush Administration asked a federal judge to force Google to comply with a subpoena for search records. (Link to CNET News.com; they've also aggregated their complete coverage of the story). The records are intended to be used to support the validity of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo were also asked to turn over records, and those three companies complied with the request.
The story is of interest more in terms of its precedent than for any actual privacy concerns. The data cannot be traced back to any personal information of individual users, and Google's objection was more over the burden of compiling the data than defending privacy. Boing Boing.net has several posts about the story from the perspective of EFF supporters.
Also getting the rebuff from Google were BellSouth and Verizon, who have been moving to charge high-bandwidth sites additional fees to support the cost of the network. Critics have been (rightly) comparing it to a virtual protection racket. Here's Peter Pollack's take on it via Ars Technica.
To complete the Google trifecta, Ars Technica is also reporting two Gmail discoveries: the long-overdue addition of a delete button, and the revelation that the service doesn't properly distinguish periods in account names, which can result in misdirected mail.
Look forward to more SFist Tech Labs roundups, featuring more of your favorite tired internet phenomena like facts about Chuck Norris, the dancing baby, “you're the man now dog,” and even the hamster dance! Collect all 5!
Image from the game Zero Wing, as well as about a billion different fan websites
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I'm curious, did you actually interview the legal team at Google? Is that how you know that "Google's objection was more over the burden of compiling the data than defending privacy." Can you enlighten us as to how you know this? It's a bit inflammatory if you don't have the facts to back it up...
That conclusion was right there in one of the posts that I linked to on Boing Boing.net, "DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes", where the author states:
(bolding mine)
The Tech Roundup columns are intended to aggregate coverage of stories from other sites on the net; I don't do any interviews or attend any events for those. For this story, I linked to articles from the pro-EFF Boing Boing and also to Ars Technica and CNET, which are likely to give a different slant on the story. I drew my own conclusions and left it to the reader to draw his own as well.
And I'll also take the opportunity to point out that of the three possible conclusions that one could take from this story (1. The DoJ is encroaching on our civil liberties to a heinous degree; 2. This instance is not an issue but it sets a troubling precedent; or 3. It's no big deal at all), conclusion number 2, which is the one that I took, is the least inflammatory.
Again, you miss the point. You link to a site that claims "...Google objected to the request not for privacy reasons, but on grounds that the request was too broad and burdensome" but that is completely subjective and there are no facts to back up the claim. But you think it's okay to include it in your "roundup" like it's fact? Isn't that a bit misleading? You aren't giving your readers a chance to draw their own conclusion about Google. You imply, or the article you link to implies, that Google would roll over like Yahoo, AOL, & MSN if it wasn't so burdensome to compile all the data. *You* say that Google's objection *isn't* about defending privacy. People reading this roundup are going to think Google is just another MSN and that's simply not true. Google's objection *is* about defending privacy. Google is one of the only companies out there that *will* stand up to the government.
I will concede that someone who posts anonymous comments to an internet site using a fake yahoo account might be better versed on the topic of internet privacy than I am, seeing as how I'm the one standing behind my conclusions with my name and unflattering photo. I have said quite plainly that my conclusions are subjective, and a reader would have to be foolish to assume otherwise.
However, I can't do any more hand-holding than pointing to sites that present the facts as we know them. What you read as my attack on Google is simply saying that the data being asked for in this case is not a privacy concern to anyone. Even the most cautionary analysts have said that the data can't be tracked to individual users, and the story is only of interest because of its possible precedent.
If you have any facts that back up your own portrayal of Google as the last honest company willing to stick it to the government, then by all means, post them here. Until then, it's no less subjective and no more reliable than any of the other hundreds of analysts and bloggers throwing in their two cents on the issue.