Federal prosecutors made a request for millions of search records from four major search engines in its defense of a controversial Internet pornography law. The investigation is part of the Bush administration's appeal regarding the Child Online Protection Act. As part of the probe, federal investigators asked for search records from Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and America Online. So far, Google has refused to comply with the government's requests, but Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft have all reportedly complied. Privacy advocates are up in arms over the idea that search results are subject to government perusal. But Yahoo and AOL both insist that, while they complied fully with the feds' request, none of the information handed over was personally identifiable. How much privacy are you willing to give up in the fight to protect children from online pornography? Is there a way to keep porn sites out of children's reach without infringing on the rights of adults?
Tug-of-war between privacy and child protection
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News.com reporter Elinor Mills talks with Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about privacy and the government's Google request.