Feds take porn fight to Google

update Federal prosecutors preparing to defend a controversial Internet pornography law in court have asked Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online to hand over millions of search records--a request that Google is adamantly denying.

In court documents filed Wednesday, the Bush administration asked a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., to force Google to comply with a subpoena for the information, which would reveal the search terms of a broad swath of the search engine's visitors.

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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.
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Prosecutors are requesting a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's popular search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google over a one-week period.

Google said in a statement sent to CNET News.com on Thursday that it will resist the request "vigorously."

The Bush administration's request, first reported by The San Jose Mercury News, is part of its attempts to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which is being challenged in court in Philadelphia by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says Web sites cannot realistically comply with COPA and that the law violates the right to freedom of speech mandated by the First Amendment.

The search engine companies are not parties to the suit.

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An attorney for the ACLU said Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL received identical subpoenas and chose to comply with them rather than fight the request in court.

Yahoo acknowledged on Thursday that it complied with the Justice Department's request but said no personally identifiable information was handed over. "We are vigorous defenders of our users' privacy," said Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako. "We did not provide any personal information in response to the Justice Department's subpoena. In our opinion this is not a privacy issue."

Osako declined to provide details, but court documents in the Google case show that the government has been demanding "the text of each search string entered" by users over a time period of between one week and two months, plus a listing of Web sites taken from the search engine's index.

"Our understanding is that MSN and AOL have complied with the government's request, that Yahoo has provided some information in response, but that information wasn't completely satisfactory (according to) the government," ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine said.

Jack Samad, senior vice president for the National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based advocacy group, said search engines should be willing to help the Bush administration defend the law.

"Young people are experiencing broken lives after being exposed to adult images and behaviors on the Internet," Samad said. "I'm disappointed Google did not want to exercise its good corporate branding to secure the protection of youth. I think (complying with the subpoena) would substantiate the basis of COPA if they get a free exchange of information on youthful use of the Internet."

AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein confirmed that the company received a subpoena from the DOJ but said the information from the ACLU was not accurate.

"We did not and would not comply with such a subpoena. We gave (the DOJ) a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms, and not results, from a roughly one day period. There were absolutely no privacy implications," Weinstein said. "There was no way to tie those search terms to individuals or to search results." He declined to elaborate.

A Microsoft representative said: "MSN works closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested....It is our policy to respond to legal requests in a very responsive and timely manner, in full compliance with applicable law." The company would not confirm or deny whether it complied with the Justice Department's subpoena.

But in a statement released later in the day Thursday, Microsoft said it was, in fact, contacted by the DOJ.

"We did comply with their request for data in regards to helping protect children, in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers," the company said. "We were able to share aggregated query data (not search results) that did not include any personally identifiable information, at their request."

Alberto Gonzales v. Google: the docs

Court documents reveal that the Justice Department has been pressuring Google for excerpts from its search logs for half a year. Prosecutors hope to use the excerpts to show that filtering software can't protect children online.

Government subpoena and Google's objection (186K pdf)

Motion to require Google to comply (660K pdf)

Declaration of Philip Stark, government statistics expert (1.1M pdf)

In a motion filed Wednesday (click here for PDF), prosecutors say that compliance is necessary to prove that the 1998 law is "more effective than filtering software in protecting minors from exposure to harmful materials on the Internet." Records from search logs would help to understand the behavior of Web users and estimate how frequently they encounter pornography, the motion says. For instance, Internet addresses obtained from the search engines could be tested against filtering programs to evaluate their effectiveness.

A subpoena dated August 2005 (click here for PDF) requests a complete list of all Internet addresses that can "be located" through Google's popular search engine, and "all queries that have been entered" over a two-month period beginning on June 1, 2005. Later, prosecutors offered to narrow the request to random samples of indexed sites and search strings. It's unclear what version of the request AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo complied with.

Although the government is not asking for Internet addresses that would identify people, some legal experts fear that disclosing search terms would invade privacy.

"The more (the government) can figure out who the surfers are, the more people's First Amendment rights are in jeopardy," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University.

The Justice Department declined to comment on Thursday. But in court papers, it says that even though other search companies voluntarily complied, excerpts from Google's logs are "of value to the government" because it has the "largest share of the Web search market."

To analyze the logs, the Justice Department has hired Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Stark said in a statement that analyzing information from Google would let him "estimate the prevalence of harmful-to-minors" and the "effectiveness of content filters" in blocking it.

[tryoneon]

Another Case of trying to legislate morality

I guess GWB and crew want to take peoples minds off of all the bribery going on in their group and use porn as a distraction. This is a behavioral extension of people wanting total control and is right up there with the Patriotic act for limiting liberty. I thought Republicans were for limiting Government into peoples lives? What is next, making people take lie detector test to see if they are morally acceptable? What a wolf in sheeps clothing! All I see this doing is eventually creating some type of civil war between the holier than thou's and people that want their privacy and liberty further dividing our country.

[tryoneon]

I Think There is a need ...

For a good ISP and search engine that offers to eliminate all evidence of any site you have visited and any postings coming from your computer. Now that is Liberty.

[lesliejs]

Putting all political motives aside....

The issue at stake is pornographic material easily available on the internet. Any determined teenager can get past measures put in place to block minors. Who would want to continue allowing porn to be easily available on the web?

Porn industries involve high level economics. This includes advertising. Is there any doubt that Google, as a search engine, is also a benefactor from porn advertising revenues? At the same time, if they blocked porn, they would lose a lot of porn-seeking customers.

No doubt the porn industry has expensive lawyers as well.

But that's not what Google has been asked to do. They've been asked to handover a week's records for federal prosecutors so that they can assess this situation. Google would lose money if they supported the anti-porn fight, because it would lead to loss in advertising, customer, directed search revenues.

This is not about privacy. This is not about politics. This is about who gets advantage of economics, for the love of profit/money.

As far as I can see, the only people that will raise this issue are:
1. People with conspiracy theories, raising the issue of privacy against the feds just so that they can scar the current political party in their own favor, make some noise, get attention.
2. People who think porn is fine.
3. People who profit from porn (includes search engine companies, as well as a whole chunk of internet businesses).

Think about it.

[Original_Zen]

Big Brother Is Watching or 1984 is Here Now

Govenrment has stripped the constitution down to something that the founding fathers that wrote it would not nor could not sign today. This "witch hunt" by using COPA is not above the clandestine actions for which Ex-President Nixon was forced to resign, just before he was impeached. This too is of such a nature that millions of Americans are having their privacy invaded on weak pretenses. The Federal Gov't needs to realize that this country was founded on specific freedoms & PRIVACY is one of them.
I hope that the proposed trial is able to recognise & over turn this absurd law.

[shadowself]

Stupidity

The most ludicrous part of the law is that it pertains to the U.S. What happens to the usefulness (if there ever was any) of this law when 99.9% of the porn sites move out of the U.S.?

When was the last time any of us thought the Internet was U.S. only?

Oh yes, that would be when the current administration recently decided they would maintain control of it. (Which is pure fantasy anyway.)

[Vetter83]

conspiracy theories

"1. People with conspiracy theories, raising the issue of privacy against the feds just so that they can scar the current political party in their own favor, make some noise, get attention.
2. People who think porn is fine.
3. People who profit from porn (includes search engine companies, as well as a whole chunk of internet businesses)"

1. The Govt has NO right nor need for the information.
2. Pornography is the dead bodies of civilians laying in the streets of Iraq needlessly!
3. Haliburton, the oil companies, and the military industrial complex, and this adminstrations 'backers' are ALL profiting from the pornography stated above...

[unknown unknown]

filtering methods are less effective than criminal prohibitions...not

I think they'll have hard time arguing that considering that should the law be enforced it only applies to U.S websites where the internet is Global. So protect minors it won't.

Wasn't part of the problem with COPA their definition of harmful to minors? I believe it had something to do with using community standards and how it would force publishers to set standards based on the standards of the most restrictive community thus allowing a minority to dictate what decent for everyone else.

[tiffanybbrown]

er ... IP addresses?

i'm pretty sure that you can use IP addresses to find a specific computer in a specific location. and what can't be gleaned from an ARIN database search (i.e. your workplace, university or service provider) can probably be served up by your ISP with no problem.

it seems that by casting such a wide, aimless net, the feds are trying to stamp out internet porn. (come to think of it, stamping out porn is a part of the rnc 2004 platform.)

[Tom517]

A Parental Government?

It is interesting to see the perpetual encroachment of the Federal Government into the day-to-day lives of Americans.

Slowly we sit here while parents leave parenting to the government and the government seems to think it knows best what is good for me.

Here's to Google for resisting!!! Shame on the others for not having done so.

[rivera973]

the lazy way

You know there is a problem immediately. The Bush administration is attacking this problem they way it seems to do everything else: the lazy way. The instant something is done the lazy way, it is clear something is wrong.

The FBI has done plenty of good research and work (Innocent Images?) over the last few years on the subject. I am sure there are other organization doing similar work. The point is the Bush administration is to lazy to organize everyone and collect the hard work other people have already done. The lazy way is to ignore current work and start from the begining with data that may add very little to what is already known. The Bush administration prefers to waste money and create yet another situation where civil rights are threatened. It is a strange form of efficiency.

Google is doing the right thing.

[jfmezei]

George Orwell would be proud

Americans elected this current government with full knowledge that it had a "total information awareness" goal amongst other things.

Now that these programmes are becoming real, it is too late to complain. The government was given a mandate by the people to do what it is doing.

Google should simply move north to Canada.

[Wiggletoe]

Google should sue DOJ.

Google should sue for damage to it's business model.

[yrrahxob]

Thank you Google

For standing up to the government and standing up for consumer rights. What the government is doing is blatant disregard for the constitution and those government officials who support this act of tyranny should be indicted as criminals against the people.

[lingsun]

Google should remove sites that show children being molested

Google is the villain. They're not the good guy. They list sites that show children being molested. These aren't adults dressed up like children. I know the difference between an 8 year old and an adult woman with pigtails. That's the real crime here.

[Anon-Y-mous]

If this was MSN y'all'd be backin the guv'ment

I'm willing to bet. In your eyes, Google can do no wrong, even when refusing to reply with a COURT ORDER.

MSFT would drop from $27 to $7 if they pulled this.

[mydstar]

Eliminate all websites

The only way to eliminate offensive web sites is to eliminate all websites, all forms of printed material,and all other means of communications. Something out there is always going to be offensive to someone. If it is not communicated publicly, then it must not exist???? That is the kind of hypocrisy that has keep child abuse alive for centuries.

[Drewzilla]

COPA will work as well as CAN SPAM!

COPA will be just as effective in protecting children as the CAN SPAM law stopped spam.

CAN SPAM is a good example that technology is much better at fixing a technological problem.

Filters work better than legislation.

[vasanisalim]

Thank You Google!!

Great job google. Irrespective of what data the Feds want and what they want to do with it, just the idea of someone invetigating into search terms and their results makes me feel uncomfortable.

[Brad81]

ISP's

Feds should look to the ISP's for the information as the links have been actively clicked and there would be a record there. They are lazy and just trying to take the easy way out by trying to break the back of an organisation that actually cares about user privacy. They should get off their ar*e and do the job properly.

[fasnashun]

No responsibility

This is just another in the long line of governmental interference in our lives because the People don't want take responsibility for themselves (and, in this case, their children). I am a parent. It is my right and privilege to raise them as I see fit, to allow or not allow what they see, hear and do. Parents need to pay attention to their children and control what they do. It is not the place of government to tell people they can't have something simply because parents are too lazy to do their jobs and want everyone else to "take care of the children". What about those who choose not to have children? Why is it supposed to be an influence on their lifestyle as to what affects someone elses children? Parents don't deserve to be parents who don't want to do the work, IMO.