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EDITORIAL: Who's Googling Whom, Your Government Wants to Know

Posted on: Monday, 23 January 2006, 18:00 CST

By The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Jan. 23--How many times a day do you google? What started out as a search engine's name has now morphed into a term to describe searches for information on millions of subjects. Most people with computers google using Google several times a day. The government now wants to know what you google and has subpoenaed the company for millions of records. Google has refused. According to The New York Times, the company's lawyers contend the government's request is "overly broad" and "onerous to comply with."

Google says it feels the government is on a fishing expedition and believes that if it releases that information it will also reveal trade secrets about how its search engine works. Yahoo said it complied to the government's subpoena on a "limited basis," according to The Times, and MSN said it "works closely with law enforcement officials."

All the government wants is a week's worth of search queries and a random list of a million web addresses in the company's database. The search queries alone could amount to billions of terms. Why does the government need this information? It wants to use the data to help defend the Child Online Protection Act that hasn't been implemented due to a host of concerns. If a web site carries material considered to be harmful to children, stiff penalties await the producers of the site. That sounds reasonable. But it's almost impossible to verify, as the law requires, the age of the person sitting at the computer. In its subpoena, the government is hoping to find out how much harmful material exists and how effective filtering software might be to block it out.

There is no doubt that the pornography industry has a huge impact on the Internet. While there are efforts to slow Internet porn down, the industry raked in $2.5 billion of its $12.6 billion in revenue last year from Internet sales. Still, Google lawyers say, the government hasn't proven that it needs the subpoenaed records, and the company contends that if it turns the data over, the relationship with its customers and users would be at risk.

The real issues go beyond the company's concerns. Do Americans want the government to be able to peek at the subjects they search? The world of privacy is tenuous enough with the Patriot Act giving authorities broad powers to infiltrate our lives all in the name of preventing terror. If, as The Times article explains, the government gains the power to bend search engines to its will, the entire Internet experience will change. While Google is obviously concerned about the viability of its business model, the average person who types in "recipe for macaroni and cheese" should also be concerned. George Orwell's 1984, as a vision of the future, is becoming more real every day.

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To see more of The Macon Telegraph, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.macon.com

Copyright (c) 2006, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

NYT, MSFT, GOOG,

Source: The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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