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Suit accuses Google of profiting from child porn
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Jeffrey Toback, a Democratic representative in New York's Nassau County Legislature, charged in a complaint filed Thursday that Google has been taking in billions of dollars by allowing child pornography and "other obscene content" operators to advertise their sites through sponsored links, which are tailored to a user's search terms and automatically accompany search results. The suit was filed in the New York Supreme Court.
Among other allegations, the complaint evoked the politically volatile topic of the search engine's dealings in China.
"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
A Google representative said Friday that the company prohibits child pornography in its products and removes all such content whenever the company finds or is made aware of it. "We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography," spokesman Steve Langdon said in an e-mail.
Langdon pointed to the content policy for Google's AdWords sponsored links service, which broadly prohibits "promotion of child pornography or other non-consensual material." Langdon also noted that Google offers a filtering tool called SafeSearch that aims to block offensive content in search results.
The availability of such tools could mean that the suit may not go far. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects providers and users of an "interactive computer service" from liability if it can be shown that they took good-faith measures to restrict access to obscene material. It also provides 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."
The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial. It also accuses Google of violating federal statutes relating to child pornography and calls for the court to order that Google cease "advertising, promoting, or distributing" child pornography through its site or otherwise providing any links to such content.
The suit was filed by the White Plains, N.Y.-based firm of Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz. Other recent lawsuits filed by the firm have sought at least $10 million for alleged sex discrimination against Atlantic City, N.J., casino cocktail waitresses and $600 million from the maker of an ephedra-based dietary supplement claimed to cause the death of a Baltimore Orioles pitcher.
Toback, the politician backing the action, describes himself in his biography on Nassau County's Web site as a "quality of life guy" who has focused on legislation promoting open space and recreational areas. He has also co-sponsored a law designed to protect teenagers from tanning beds and has planned this year to pursue a ban of toy guns in the area.
The legal action against Google comes as Congress and the Bush administration have been attempting to step up their crackdown on online sexual exploitation of children. The Justice Department has proposed a mandatory labeling system for sites bearing sexually explicit content and higher penalties for Internet service providers that don't report child pornography on their networks to the appropriate authorities.
See more CNET content tagged:
suit, Google Inc., complaint, New York, search result
42 comments
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Maybe google should be praised for giving the FBI a powerful tool to use to track down child pornographers.
So, does that mean the claimant want to be able to look for it anyway?
In other words should not the statement have read
"Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from anyone."
Seems like do as I say, not what I do!
Seems like it would be more important to block such content from reaching adults, since adults are the audience and creators of such content.
Also, I'm calling shenanigans. It is patently (not patentably) ridiculous to think that a legitimate public company of the size, scope and constant newsworthiness of Google would condone child pornography in order to themselves profit.
IANAL but it would seem like Google might be able to file suit against this guy for defamation or slander or some shuch legal thing for making an accusation like this.
1. Users being able to search for these type things and being able to filter content out.
Since they have SafeSearch essentially blocking these websites (as much as they can) unless the users chooses to turn them off, Google should not be held responsible.
(Some may say the fact that they are in their search engine is no good but then you get into censoring the internet and it's a bad direction to go down...)
2. Child Porn sites putting Google Ads on their site (which by Google's advertising process will theoretically link to related materials thereby making it "easy" for somebody to hop from child-porn site to child-porn site) and Google making money off of the advertisement clicks.
This is probably the more feasable of the two since they can link $$$ to specific sites and show they are "profiting" from them, but they have their content policy and report sites found to authorities. What else do they want Google to do?
Perhaps they can be a little more careful over who they allow to put their ads on? Or provide to take all of the money found to be acquired by these sites and have them donated to an agency or non-profit group whose aim is to stop child-pornography?
Those may not be such bad ideas, but that's something Google has to make a policy, not some lawsuite-throwing Politician!
Keep the net neutral and free!
IANAL but it would seem like Google might be able to file suit against this guy for defamation or slander or some shuch legal thing for making an accusation like this.
I am sensing Evil Corp. itself(Microsoft) is behind this to distract Google so MS can keep working to get their search engine up to par.
This is nothing more than a politician trying to get attention in an election year, not caring who he steps on to get it.
Google does pursue a catch 'em and kill 'em approach to kiddy pron ppc ads, though some of these jerks slip through occasionally. I don't necessarily think M$ caused this flap, but they certainly have a lot to gain from publicising it.
Come to think of it, the way political lobbying works in this country, it is entirely conceivable that Microsoft rented themselves a politician...
But anyone who knows anything about search engines should rightfully dismiss these charges as frivolous crap.
Keep in mind that the standard necessary for convition in civil court is mouch lower than criminal court.
In civil court "reasonable doubt" doesn't apply.
That's one thing seriously wrong with the civil court system.
The other tipoff that this is bogus is that this is filed by a politician in an election year. This clown gets his name in the headlines as a "porn fighter" when he's nothing of the sort. Just a cheap sleazy opportunist.
If the guy had any real evidence to back up his claims, this would be all over the Senate/House floors.
My advice - vote for his opponent.
As for news.com.com.com.com.com.com - shame on you for even reporting this nonsense and giving it any shred of credibility. This is nothing but tabloid politics at it's worst.
If the latter doesn't make it more obvious how ridiculous his claim is... then the quote about "keeping child porn from children" certainly will.
Oh how I wish I lived in his district so I could vote for his opponent. Certainly some of those who read this article do, and will be influenced the same as I have. See, this Cnat article does have its merits.
Actually, a Google search for 'democracy' conducted in China returns 280,000,000 hits. (While searching for 'Jeffrey Toback' yields a paltry 352 hits. No, Mr. Toback, Google's not blocking your name in China either, you're just the opposite of famous, at least until this ridiculous law suit).
Get your facts straight, Mr. Toback. Voters of Nassau County, beware of your lying legislator.
Bill Thompson
Shanghai, China
Those silly networks keep advertising video games they can't buy and movies they can't watch. Next, I could go after the print media for the same reason. Perhaps after the collapse of the "FREE" market, law makers might consider putting a stop to stupid law suits such as this.
And of course if theyre in the US - just take them down!
Block the source!
resemble Nazis shows a poor understanding of history, National
Socialism, fascism, the Democratic Party, The Republican Party,
hell, pretty much everything.
What?
Say what again! Say what again! I dare you! No, I double-dare
you, mothersmurfer! Say what again!
He's big!
Go on!
He's uses a Mac!
Does he look like a snitch?
What?
[shoots character]
I asked, "Does he look like a snitch?"
NO!
Then why are you trying to smurf him like one?
No, I'm not!
Yes, you are, Brett. And Mr. Wallace doesn't like to be smurfer by
anyone except Mrs. Wallace.
Hey, everyone. I thought I'd respond in kind to something that
made less sense that this.
"The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that we know that"
Oh well, Charles Darwin six billion plus, creative intelligent design minus infinity !
Someone, please send in a Brain Surgeon, so they can find his missing brain!
(statcounter.com)
One day I posted an entry about a bad dream I had,
about my uncle trying to molest me as a kid.
Later that day, when I checked my hitcounter website,
I was shocked to see the google ad now read:
"bring purveyors of adult content to your adult website"
Why would google try to sell molesting kids as adult entertainment??!
say that it was for child porn?
While I don't visit either kind, most "adult content" is not child
porn, although a lot of it does cater to sick minds (avoiding porn
ads of any sort is the best advantage of pop-up blockers, as they
keep trying to get around filters and other attempts to block them).
what next?
fact any kind of porn in that quote.
Look it up!