Absurdity in child porn suit against Google
Jeffrey Toback seems to be caught in a time warp. The Democratic representative in New York's Nassau County Legislature has filed a lawsuit charging that Google in collecting billions of dollars by allowing child pornography sites to advertise on the company's sponsored links.
As News.com pointed out, the Communications Decency Act states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This issue was resolved 10 years ago under the federal law, which we're pretty sure applies to Long Island as well as the rest of the country.
Blogma believes in taking the strongest possible measures against child pornography under the law, of course, but Toback's claims are simply ludicrous. Under this logic--if it can be called that--Google or practically any other Web company would be liable for any illegal material that passes through its networks, servers, advertising programs or any other operations and infrastructure on the public Internet. It's actions like this that give good lawyers a bad name.
Blog community response:
"This lawsuit does just happen to fall on an election year so one has to wonder if the real agenda is to gain some free press or to actually deal with the issue itself."
--SearchRank
"The plaintiff says that Google has AdSense ads that promote child pornography. Results from Google Search for 'child pornography' show non-profit organizations, anti-child pornography (sites) or talk about child pornography laws. So Google doesn't encourage child pornography or make money from it."
--Google Operating System
"I want very much to believe that this is nothing more than a witch hunt. I find it odd that the suit does not name other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN. Now, is this a politician trying to make a name for himself? Or is there merit to this case? (Insert deity), I really hope not."
--Liquidmatrix
