Google's Response to the DoJ Motion 315
neoviky writes "Google Inc. on Friday formally rejected the U.S. Justice Department's subpoena of data from the Web search leader, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users' Web searches and its own trade secrets.
Responding to a motion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose Web search data was impractical."
Equal treatment? (Score:2, Insightful)
Only way to get it ... Google to volunteer (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way they should get the data is if Google volunteers to give it.
What's the government thinking anyways? If they just tapped on Microsoft's shoulder I'm sure Bill would hand over all of MSNs search data.
Expect more subpoenas-- (Score:5, Insightful)
PR Stunt ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am amazed that people do not see Google's action for what it is -- a huge and hugely inexpensive public relations stunt. From a legal standpoint, Google does not have much ground to stand on. Yahoo and Microsoft realized this and that is why they complied. However, from a public relations point of view, it costs Google a small handful of hours of legal time and in return, Google gets featured on Slashdot and the countries newspapers, television and radio outlets, in addition to all over the internet numerous times. In the vast majority of cases, Google will be featured as the do-gooder ("do no evil") standing up to the U.S. Government on the public's behalf meanwhile making its competitors (Yahoo and Microsoft) look bad in the public eye.
In the end, expect Google to comply with the DOJ's request but only after getting all the (almost) free publicity it can from this. I hope that there are some writers of marketing and public relations books paying attention to this stunt because this has got to be one of the best (and least expensive) public relations coups in recent history.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PR Stunt ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then yeah, google should hand it over immediately, no questions asked
But for pr0n and other irrelevant junk? The government should be
focusing on more important stuff anyways
Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand, the government asked for web search strings alone. No identifying information at all.
Google claims to be fighting the good fight of protecting their users' data, but how different is the data that the government wants, from the data the Google itself uses to comprise the various lists of most popular searches, the 'popular topics' are in news.google.com, etc? I'm not sure that I'd like my search to be part of such a public display. Is Google's users' data being user improperly in that case, too?
The way I see it is that Google is simply grandstanding. There have been some voices recently that Google has been getting too powerfull and encompassing. They have your email, they know what you search for, and they search your entire hard drive and call back home with their toolbar.
From what I understand, the government asked them for similar search data, with no identifying information, for their own statystical analysis. Is this Google's chance to get back to the good graces of the Internet's geeks, stick to their missions to "do no evil" and retain their image of the anti-corporation, the underdog, and the rebel, while trying to get back to their $150 billion market cap?
It doesn't align with their PR strategies... (Score:3, Insightful)
The other sites don't have that as a PR strategy at the moment. Therefore, they would perceive little to no value compared to their costs.
Of course, it does sound good to stand up to the government lately with all the negative trends against privacy going on, but as many have pointed out, google themselves is using the data in ways not that much different from the government plans, so it isn't 100% as good as they like everyone to think...
Re:PR Stunt ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the information the government wanted was a matter of national security
Then yeah, google should hand it over immediately, no questions asked
Yeah, according to the DHS, everything is a matter of national security. They use it as an excuse for just about everything they want to do, without being subject to scrutiny.
Why is everything evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyones complaining about googles hypocracy needs to get off their silly "they are a company now and like all companies have to be selfish and everything they do is public facing deception only".
I'm by no means claiming they are protectors of the smaller people but they have done NOTHING wrong or hypocritical at all. In fact they are holding up their end of the promise they made to the smaller people.
Re:PR Stunt? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Laughable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for them (Score:0, Insightful)
And another rabid liberal raises his ugly head. Care to make any more incorrect analogies to show your ignorance? There is a huge difference between refusing to answer questions in a confirmation hearing and refusing a legal warrent. Google hasn't refused any warrents, they refused a REQUEST for information, if it had been a warrent they would have turned over the information already.
Re:In Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
I imagine people asking their local photo shop to invade their customer's privacy and give them a few thousand random photos (all for ), then suing when the shop tells them to fuck off.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Insightful)
How much disconnect is there between the DoJ finding search strings interpreted by them as criminal activity, and their demanding the IP addresses that made them? And why do so many people still trust the intentions of our government?
Re:Only way to get it ... Google to volunteer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:PR Stunt ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I am amazed that people do not see Google's action for what it is -- a huge and hugely inexpensive public relations stunt. From a legal standpoint, Google does not have much ground to stand on. Yahoo and Microsoft realized this and that is why they complied. However, from a public relations point of view, it costs Google a small handful of hours of legal time and in return, Google gets featured on Slashdot and the countries newspapers, television and radio outlets, in addition to all over the internet numerous times. In the vast majority of cases, Google will be featured as the do-gooder ("do no evil") standing up to the U.S. Government on the public's behalf meanwhile making its competitors (Yahoo and Microsoft) look bad in the public eye.
I can just imagine Google's competitors being similarly subpeona'd and making the business case to cooperate with the government solely in the hopes that their cooperation forces Google's cooperation. Google's the market leader in search, their competitors have a lot more to gain by giving up their secrets in exchange for Google's secrets. (In fact, if you want to conjecture^2, this may even be why Yahoo! announced recently that they don't want to compete in search.)
Maybe we shouldn't be commending Google for taking a principled stand (which it isn't), but condemning Microsoft and friends for folding so easily. They had every right to refuse, the government is fishing for scientifically useless data from totally unrelated parties.
The judge should be able to see that their competitors complied to gain access to Google's trade secrets, and that their compliance does not validate the government's request, but this may be of no concern to the court.
Re:Selective Legality (Score:1, Insightful)
What I don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
is why the DoJ thinks they have a legal right to access Google's information/logs?
Do they have any credible evidence that Google broke the law? Or that a particular user broke the law? If so, they they should subpoena an individual users records.
It seems to me that the DoJ merely wants Google information because they want to go on a "fishing expedition". Google should have no obligation to assist the DoJ in a "fishing expedition".
The DOJ on "information and belief" have some theories apparently. Just because Google has information that may or may not disprove their theory, no one should compel Google to turn over that information. It's up the the DoJ to get their own information if they believe such. If they don't have their own independent source from which to obtain it, then too bad.
Re:PR Stunt? (Score:2, Insightful)
Every URL in the Google Database (Score:3, Insightful)
The response letter said the DOJ wanted a list of every URL that could be returned by a search query in the Google database. I can't even imagine how much data that is. I'd comply with that bit, print it all out, and send the DOJ the bill...
Is it just me or does it sound like the DOJ had no idea what they were actually asking for?
Re:Laughable (Score:3, Insightful)
What amazes me the most about this whole affair - and that I haven't really seen addressed - is that this is the kind of data usually provided by studies... that the government would have to fund. I really don't see what basis they have for asking this as free information.
Put it another way - what would happen if the government said "we need to write an operating system that we can control, but that is 100% compatible with all the Windows apps" and requested the Windows source code from Microsoft, instead of writing their own? Again, for free? You know, just because they're the government, and they can ask for it? Besides the fact that Slashdot would implode because it wouldn't know which side to support, I can only assume Microsoft's reaction would be the same.
I don't think anyone really believes this is about "identifying information". Plain and simple, this mountain of data Google is sitting on is a huge part of their value as a company, and giving it away would be equivalent to suicide.
Completely different (Score:5, Insightful)
With the RIAA, a crime had been committed, and Yahoo was asking to not turn over information identifying the offenders (more or less, yes, this is simplified).
In this case, the government has *no* committed crime, and is not trying to track down any criminals. They are simply trying (or at least, this is their justification) to obtain Google's search data to support GOP initiatives to spread pornography filters based on the fact that N% of searches return pornography hits.
My take is that Google is completely in the right. The federal government has absolutely no right to that data, nor do I want them to be able to subpoena it.
As for not being identifiable, give me a break. You surf sites with ads served by people like Doubleclick and Google Ads. Google can match all past searches from your IP or from a machine with any cookies that they've set on your machine. This is not speculation -- they have specifically stated that they have this ability. It's a pretty good bet that a number of sites on the Web have your real name. Maybe it's not a drop-in "Google has a complete database", but it only takes Google + *one* other website you visit that has your personal name, and there's a damned comprehensive list of your thoughts, research, summary of what you're reading about and so forth available to the federal government.
I don't think that this is a very good thing.
Re:Google = hypocrite. (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, that's exactly what they're doing in both cases.
They are complying with Chinese law in the first case (just like, oh, I don't know
- Brian Roach
Re:Completely different (Score:4, Insightful)
Damnitall, folks, start taking a stand now while we still have the freedom of speech and free press (at least free press not run by the Rupert Murdochs of the world). Copping out with the excuse "oh, well someone agreed to do it, everyone should follow" is just as bad as running blindly after the lemmings in their shiny metal boxes as they jump off a cliff.
Wait, can lemmings jump?
Regardless, it shouldn't just be the court deciding something that affects democracy, freedom and privacy. The legislative branch is part of the checks-and-balances system in the US, not the representative branch of government that is empowered to decide whether or not freedoms can be suspended when it suits the interest of political agenda or socio-political pandering. Granted, actions such as the Patriot Act hardly commend them as being stewards of said freedoms, but thankfully many in the representative branch seem to be coming to their senses.
You have to keep the pressure on so this process continues - people died for the freedoms we're taking for granted every day in the US, so don't squander them simply so you can sit back and chortle about winning and fanboy/flamebait war.
&laz;
About face? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is getting confusing.
Re:About face? (Score:3, Insightful)
The US subpeona is to turn over data that users consider private.
I'd consider it a pretty large difference.
Re:Laughable (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know how this got to insightful.. can you not tell the difference between a corporation using its own data and the government attempting to access it?
Let's put it another way: If search engines were run by the government, on government servers, would you really use them in the same way? Of course not! You'd find other ways to get what you wanted from the internet - a list of IP addresses, a list of websites, a handwritten list of your most useful sites to find things. No need for the government to know everything you look for and are interested in on the internet, right?
Somehow how you twisted it around to Google abusing the privacy of its own users by publishing top 10 lists or publishing search results information. I guess if you had watched the superbowl this year you would have been suspicious of being included as one of the 65 million viewers of the event?
Re:Only way to get it ... Google to volunteer (Score:2, Insightful)
The point isn't what can the government get from it, it's does the government has the right to demand it from a company. In their brief Google makes a strong case that, no, they don't.
We need to be very careful about this kind of thing. The government is trying very hard to define our online rights differently than any other rights. This subpoena tramples several rights companies have, and the government hasn't even made a compelling case, and it is their burden to do so, as to why they need the data.
If we aren't vigilant about these kinds of issues, we will find our privacy compromised greatly in the growing online environment.
Re:Completely different (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only way to get it ... Google to volunteer (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, corporations do really bad things that are a detriment to the planet as a whole and then get a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, someone smoking some weed goes to jail for the rest of his life.
If that's not "hand in hand skipping through the flowers", I don't know what is.
google.cn in perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
Google *adds* a local search service (google.cn) to the people of China that complies with local laws and censors it results, this service is somewhat more transparent than other search engines offerings in China as it actually shows *what was censored*. Not a whisper is heard about Yahoo and MSN's local services. Now all of a sudden Google is the new poster boy of *Evil, will sell mum for a buck*, what gives??
Do people actually know that this is an *added service* and that the exact same google.com that was available to the Chinese people before, that was behind 'The Great Firewall', slow and unresponsive and not accessible 10% of the time - is still available?
Does anyone know what the people of China (who are the ones affected) actually think of the new service? who finally have access to a fast, resourceful search service that we take for granted?
God dammit people we are complaining about a *FREE* service, that people can choose to use on their own accord. If it actually gets used it's because that it provides better experience than the google.com offering.
Since then anything good they do that benefits us all - fighting for our privacy, hell they even told AT&T and Verizon to stick their cyber extortion plan (which if enforced would benefit them in the long run), is overshadowed by one of their *FREE* services.
I don't know about the rest of you but I haven't paid *a cent* to Google yet use their services daily. (google.com, maps.google/Google Earth, Google Talk, Gmail, Google Groups, Google Desktop). For me they are still the same *Do no evil* company that existed when they only had one *FREE* service.
Some people need a hobby.
Re:Only way to get it ... Google to volunteer (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't get the soccer mom and fundamentalist Christian votes.