The state of Virginia has backed away from its attempts to force Facebook to divulge the complete contents of a user's account to settle a dispute over workers' compensation, narrowly avoiding what promised to be a high-profile privacy battle in federal court.
On Monday, the Virginia's Workers Compensation Commission said it was no longer going to levy a $200-a-day fine on the social-networking site for refusing to comply with a subpoena from an airline that previously employed a flight attendant named Shana Hensley.
Facebook had objected to the June 4 subpoena from Colgan Air--the Manassas, Va.-based company that operates under the names United Express, US Airways Express, and Continental Connection--on privacy grounds. It said federal law prohibits divulging user data in response to a subpoena, and promised to "further litigate this issue by seeking, among other things, an injunction from the federal courts."
In principle, this isn't a novel concept: employers and insurance companies have long used private investigators to ferret out fraud and show that someone who claims to be a virtual cripple actually participates in waterskiing competitions.
Because social-networking sites offer such information-rich glimpses into a person's private life, insurers and employers have begun eyeing them. A personal injury lawyer in Elmira, N.Y., noted in July that an accident victim claiming to be severely injured was, thanks to Facebook, revealed to be playing in soccer games. An article last week in Business Insurance said that social-networking sites revealed exaggerated claims of injuries from a judo instructor, a bowler, and a rodeo bronco rider.
In the Colgan Air case, Facebook says it's happy that privacy rights prevailed. "We're pleased with the outcome and that our users' information will be protected," said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.
Colgan Air, which is owned by the publicly traded Pinnacle Airlines, initially paid Hensley's disability benefits that were related to a back injury while on the job (she was diagnosed with a herniated disc that did not want surgery). After about 18 months, however, Colgan Air claimed that Hensley was not cooperating with its efforts to find her a desk job and appears to have concluded that Hensley's holiday vacation photos posted on her Facebook account would demonstrate that any back problems were not severe.
The airline's June 4 subpoena from Virginia attorney Charles Midkiff (PDF) demands "all documents, electronic or otherwise, related directly or indirectly, to all activities, writings, photos, comments, e-mails, and/or postings" on Hensley's Facebook account.
Six days later, Facebook responded, saying that the request must come from a California court, and that it was "overly broad" because the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) protects the privacy of user accounts. Midkiff, the airline's lawyer, replied by requesting a "contempt citation against Facebook" from the Virginia's Workers Compensation Commission.
Randolph Tabb, a deputy worker's compensation commissioner, granted it. On August 28, Tabb held Facebook in contempt for "a failure to comply" and ordered a $200-a-day fine "until such time as compliance is satisfied by the production of said documentation."
Facebook's response to Tabb sent last week says that "users such as Ms. Hensley rely on Facebook to protect their data and vigorously enforce the privacy decisions they make on Facebook." It adds: "Courts have interpreted the ECPA to prohibit services such as Facebook from producing a non-consenting subscriber's communications even when those communications are sought pursuant to a court order or subpoena."
Put another way: unless you change your mind, we'll see you in federal court.
It worked. Tabb backed down, reversing his previous ruling and fine, and claimed that Facebook should have made the full scope of its objections clear earlier.
James Szablewicz, Virginia's chief deputy worker's compensation commissioner, said in an interview on Monday that he didn't know of any other case involving Facebook that his colleagues have faced. "I think it's a pretty good chance that this is a case of first impression for us," he said.
Privacy advocates applauded Monday's decision, likening it to Google's mostly successful effort to fend off a subpoena from the Justice Department three years ago. Jim Dempsey, a vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said: "Too often, lawyers in civil cases are turning to service providers like Facebook, AOL, and Google with fishing requests. The law is clear--service providers cannot turn over content in civil cases."
Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the principles are similar to the one involving Apple Computer's efforts to unmask product leakers (the case is O'Grady v. Superior Court). "We were very glad to see that the rule of law we helped to establish in the O'Grady case is being used to ensure that Facebook content is not disclosed in violation of federal privacy statutes."
There's an ironic ending to this story. Julie Heiden, a Virginia personal injury lawyer representing the former flight attendant, Shana Hensley, said in an interview on Monday that the subpoena won't be necessary after all.
"We agreed to sign a release," Heiden said, meaning a document that authorizes Facebook to disclose the contents of Hensley's account to her former employer. "Shana has executed the release...She has nothing to hide."
Update 9/15/2009: Colgan Air spokesman Joe Williams says: "As you might expect, we do not comment on pending litigation."
Social-networking sites and other Web services can't be held liable in a sexual assault on a minor that stemmed from a meeting online, according to a ruling in a California appeals court that consolidated a number of complaints against MySpace on behalf of teenage girls and their parents.
Reuters reported late on Wednesday that the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles cited the Communications Decency Act in coming to the conclusion. Claiming negligence and product liability, the plaintiffs had alleged that MySpace had failed to put in place age verification software or to keep profiles on a "private" setting.
Other federal courts have come to similar rulings. Last year, a Texas court ruled that the family of a 14-year-old girl who was assaulted by a man she met on MySpace could not hold the social network responsible. The girl in question had lied about her age when she created a profile, claiming to be a legal adult, and the court ruled that it was her parents' job, not MySpace's, to keep her safe.
This week's ruling in Los Angeles received a thumbs-up from MySpace and parent company News Corp. It could also have repercussions across other social networks and community-based Web sites, which have been subject to scrutiny from authorities over both safety and decency standards. Craigslist, for example, has faced a crackdown on sex-related ads after both allegations of rampant prostitution and a high-profile case in which a Craigslist encounter allegedly ended in murder.
The situation can be different, if there is actual harassment conducted through the social network, rather than an offline assault. In that case, if it appears that a Web service isn't doing enough to keep members safe while using the site, it can, in some cases, be held responsible.
Facebook and MySpace are working with state attorneys general to keep registered sex offenders out of their user bases, following allegations from lawmakers that they weren't doing enough to maintain a safe environment for minors.
On Thursday, the sentencing is expected in another Los Angeles court for Lori Drew, who has been convicted of three misdemeanors after impersonating a teenage boy on MySpace and harassing a 13-year-old girl allegedly to the point of suicide.
Drew could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and forced to pay a fine of $300,000, a far lesser sentence than she originally faced.
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The city of Bozeman, Mont., has rescinded its long-standing policy that job applicants provide user names and passwords to social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
According to a press release (PDF) issued Friday:
The extent of our request for a candidate's password, user name, or other internet information appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community. We appreciate the concern many citizens have expressed regarding this practice and apologize for the negative impact this issue is having on the City of Bozeman.
The city stopped the practice as of midday Friday, until it "conducts a more comprehensive evaluation of the practice," the release said.
Bozeman, which is about 100 miles north of Yellowstone National Park, found itself in the international spotlight this week when the local media reported that the city government's background check included evaluating job candidates' suitability based on their social-networking site postings. The city had been doing so for a few years.
The background check form stated: "Please list any and all current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
Groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, derided the practice.
"I think it's indefensibly invasive and likely illegal as a violation of the First Amendment rights of job applicants," EFF attorney Kevin Bankston told CNET News earlier this week. "Essentially, they're conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights...and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them...Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?"
City Manager Chris Kukulski noted to KBZK TV that information wasn't sought until "you were conditionally offered the job." The passwords already received will remain the city's confidential property, the CBS affiliate reported.
If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, Mont., be prepared to hand over much more than your references and resume.
The Rocky Mountain city instructs all job applicants to divulge their user names and passwords for "any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
"Before we offer people employment in a public trust position, we have a responsibility to do a thorough background check," Chuck Winn, Bozeman's assistant city manager, said in an interview on Thursday. "This is just a component of a thorough background check."
"Shame on us if there was information out there available about a person who applied for a job who was a child molester or had some sort of information out there on the Internet that kind of showed those propensities and we didn't look for it, we didn't ask, and we hired that person," Winn said. "In many ways we would have let the public down."
After local news reports highlighted the requirement on Wednesday, a firestorm of sorts has erupted online: irate e-mail messages have jammed mailboxes in City Hall, snarky Twitter.com comments have poked fun at a place once awarded the sobriquet of "All-America City," and a poll indicates 98 percent of respondents believe the city's policy amounts to an "invasion of privacy."
In addition to the usual requests for a home address and Social Security number, Bozeman's one-page background check form asks for the account information for "current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships." It assures applicants that any information received "is confidential."
Winn said applicants are not required to divulge their social networking log-ins, but warned that there could be repercussions if they lie. "If you say 'I have no driving violation,' and then we run your driving record and it turns out you do, and through further questioning we find out you've been deceitful about it, than that would be cause (for firing)," he said. "That tells us a lot about that particular person. They lied to us and were deceitful."
Under the policy, which the city says has been in place for a few years, a police officer logs into and reviews the social-networking sites of people applying for public safety (that is, police and fire) jobs. For other jobs, the city's human resources department will perform the investigation.
An attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco, questioned Bozeman's decision to ask for user names and passwords.
"I think its indefensibly invasive and likely illegal as a violation of the First Amendment rights of job applicants," said EFF attorney Kevin Bankston. "Essentially, they're conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights...and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them.. Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?"
One potential privacy concern is that accounts for Facebook and Google, among other sites, are used for more than just displaying photos, videos, and messages. They're also used for e-mail, meaning that a Bozeman investigator could review years of personal messages.
"I don't think the government can condition your application for employment on your giving up your First Amendment rights and your Fourth Amendment rights," Bankston said.
Another possible hitch: Some social-networking sites flatly prohibit disclosure of passwords, so a job seeker who complied with Bozeman's request could lose his account. Facebook's terms of service, for instance, say: "You will not share your password (or) let anyone else access your account."
Bozeman's Winn said the city does not want to be the "taste police" and is focused on looking for evidence of illegal activity. "They can log in themselves," he said. "If not, they can show us what's on their face page. 'Yes, I have a face page but I don't want to show it to you.' That's a fine answer. We'll use other resources out there to do a through background check. We owe it to the public."
CNET News' Elinor Mills contributed to this report.
Internet companies and privacy experts will appear before a Congressional subcommittee later on Thursday to discuss the privacy implications of behavioral advertising.
Representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook will appear before two subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce to discuss behavioral advertising, or the practice of tailoring Internet ads to a Web surfer's behavior on a particular Web site. In order to do that, Internet companies have to collect personal data, and members of Congress as well as privacy advocates are interested in hearing more about how that data is being handled.
Such ads have been contentious in the past, and it seems a new session of Congress wants to take a fresh look at the practice.
Yahoo and Google both plan to explain how their privacy policies work with respect to the data collected through behavioral advertising. Yahoo's Anne Toth said Wednesday she will emphasize that the company has introduced a plan (that it said won't be fully complete until 2010) to remove identifying links to personal data after 90 days and has taken steps such as linking one's decision to opt out of this type of ad serving to their Yahoo account, rather than a cookie.
Google will discuss similar measures, also pointing to the benefits of serving relevant ads--rather than random ads--to Web surfers, according to a copy of the prepared testimony submitted by Google's Nicole Wong, deputy general counsel.
But privacy activists such as Princeton University's Ed Felten, who is also the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, will emphasize how many different parties have access to the data gathered through behavioral advertising, and the technical barriers that those parties can choose to erect around their data if they choose.
The hearing is supposed to begin at 7 a.m. PDT, and six speakers are expected to appear.
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Facebook's targeted advertising program is "materially different from behavioral targeting as it is usually discussed," Chris Kelly, the social network's chief privacy officer, said in remarks prepared for a Thursday morning hearing before two House subcommittees.
"In offering its free service to users, Facebook is dedicated to developing advertising that is relevant and personal without invading users' privacy, and to giving users more control over how their personal information is used in the online advertising environment," read the remarks for two subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The hearing, titled "Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices And Consumers' Expectations," was also slated to include testimonies from Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy; Scott Cleland, president of Precursor; Charles Curran, executive director of the Network Advertising Initiative; Edward Felten, director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University; Anne Toth, vice president of policy and head of privacy at Yahoo; and Nicole Wong, deputy general counsel at Google.
Chris Kelly
(Credit: Kelly2010.com)Kelly, a White House staffer under President Clinton, has announced an exploratory bid to run for attorney general in California.
Social-media sites like Facebook, where members fill out extensive personal profiles that can detail everything from their music tastes to travel plans to political leanings, are at the forefront of new developments in behavioral ad targeting. The Facebook Ads program lets advertisers fine-tune their campaigns to reach specific demographics and audiences. Kelly insisted that this does not constitute an invasion of user privacy, an Internet-wide concern that the Federal Trade Commission has been exploring at the request of privacy advocates.
"The FTC's behavioral advertising principles recognize the important distinctions made by Facebook in its ad targeting between the use of aggregate, non-personally identifiable information that is not shared or sold to third parties," Kelly's remarks read, "versus other sites' and companies surreptitious harvesting, sharing and sale of personally identifiable information to third party companies."
Privacy concerns are nothing new to Facebook. The social network went through a user backlash over the introduction of its News Feed in 2006, and a bigger one over the controversial Beacon advertising program. More recently, a revision to Facebook's terms of use prompted consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist to highlight language that it said meant that Facebook claimed ownership of user profile data and photos.
"In February of this year, we looked to revise our Terms of Use, simplifying them to cut out as much legalese as possible and explain them in plain language," Kelly's remarks explained. "When we released a first version of our new terms, a blog misinterpreted our simplification of our copyright license, claiming that it meant we were seeking to own user content. The user reaction was predictably swift and severe, and we needed to choose among weathering the storm, revising the language, and introducing an entirely new process that would directly involve users in the governance of the site."
Facebook ultimately underwent a "notice and comment period modeled in part on the federal government's rulemaking procedure...(with) a user vote at the end of the process."
The points he tried to drive home the most: that Facebook members have extensive control over their personal information and that Facebook does not allow advertisers access to "personally identifiable" data in the Facebook Ads program.
Kelly also included a general mea culpa of sorts: "Perhaps because our site has developed so quickly, Facebook may have sometimes been inartful in communicating with our users and the general public about our advertising products," he stated. "We learned many lessons about the importance of user education and extensive control from the imperfect introduction of our Beacon product in 2007. As a result, Facebook continues to be dedicated to empowering consumers to control their information in both the noncommercial and the commercial context because we believe that should be the future of advertising."
A few other interesting tidbits from Kelly's remarks: out of Facebook's 200-million-plus active users, about 65 million are in the U.S.; more than 10,000 sites are using the Facebook Connect universal log-in product; and Facebook plans to continue the discussion-and-feedback-period strategy on any future changes to its "critical site documents."
WASHINGTON--The Transportation Security Agency's plans to use X-rays to peek under air travelers' clothes may soon be shelved.
In a 310-118 vote on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that curbs the growing use of what critics call "virtual strip searches" at airport checkpoints.
Privacy groups say that the low-energy backscatter X-rays allow "a highly realistic image to be reconstructed... of the traveler's nude form" that's "detailed enough to show genitalia." The TSA, on the other hand, says it has made improvements to its scanning technology including a "privacy algorithm" that will provide the operator with vaguer outlines of body parts. (See related CBS News video.)
The House vote attached an amendment drafted by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, to a broader TSA bill.
TSA's X-ray backscatter scanning with "privacy filter," front view
(Credit: TSA.gov)Chaffetz's amendment says that whole body imaging "may not be used" as the primary method of passenger screening, and that passengers have the right to refuse it and "shall be offered a pat-down search" as an alternative. It also prohibits the storage or transmission of the whole-body images after they're no longer necessary for screening.
"Whole-body imaging is exactly what it says; it allows TSA employees to conduct the equivalent of a strip search," Chaffetz said in a statement after the vote. "Nobody needs to see my wife and kids naked to secure an airplane."
Chaffetz had first introduced the measure as a standalone bill in April. His original bill made it a federal crime for a TSA screener to share or copy a passenger image; that penalty vanished in the final version attached as an amendment.
Backscatter X-rays are relatively low-power and are believed to be safe even for frequent flyers. One manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems, boasts that its equipment can detect "explosives, narcotics, ceramic weapons" such as ceramic knives that traditional metal detectors can't. (A competing technology is called millimeter wave.)
On May 31, a coalition of advocacy groups including the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Gun Owners of America, and the Consumer Federation of America sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to "suspend the program until the privacy and security risks are fully evaluated."
TSA's "millimeter wave" technology
(Credit: TSA.gov)TSA says that it's currently using millimeter wave technology at 19 U.S. airports, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington Reagan National.
During the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Peter Pietra, the TSA's director for privacy policy and compliance, defended full-body scanning technology. (See CNET's 2006 interview with Pietra.)
"It's much better for me than going through a magnetometer," Pietra said. There's "an awful lot of work that's gone into it." Any suggestions on how to improve the privacy of the screening process, he said, could be sent to tsaprivacy@dhs.gov.
On Thursday, the full House approved the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act by a vote of 397 to 25. Now the bill heads to the Senate, which could choose to preserve or strip out the privacy amendments.
In the first case of its type, a federal judge in California has ruled that police can forcibly take DNA samples, including drawing blood with a needle, from Americans who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows ruled on Thursday that a federal law allowing DNA samples upon arrest for a felony was constitutional and did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable searches and seizures."
Hollows, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, said the procedure was no more invasive or worrisome than fingerprinting or a photograph. "The court agrees that DNA sampling is analogous to taking fingerprints as part of the routine booking process upon arrest," he wrote, calling it "a law enforcement tool that is a technological progression from photographs and fingerprints."
Lawrence Brown, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, says he's "gratified" by the ruling
(Credit: U.S. Department of Justice)"The invasiveness of DNA testing is minimal," Hollows wrote (PDF). "The DNA can be taken by an oral swab, and even blood tests have been held to be a minimal intrusion."
"We are very gratified with the ruling," Lawrence Brown, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, said in a statement. It also said that the U.S. Department of Justice "exercised its authority under the statute earlier this year and issued direction to various federal agencies to begin collecting the DNA of individuals who are arrested or facing charges, as has historically been the case with the collection of fingerprints."
A bill that President Bush signed in January 2006 said any federal police agency could "collect DNA samples from individuals who are arrested." Anyone who fails to cooperate is, under federal law, guilty of an additional crime.
In addition, federal law and subsequent regulations from the Department of Justice authorize any means "reasonably necessary to detain, restrain, and collect a DNA sample from an individual who refuses to cooperate in the collection of the sample." The cheek swab or blood tests can be outsourced to "private entities."
While other courts have ruled on the constitutionality of DNA sampling after conviction, this is the first case to deal with defendants who have only been accused of a crime. (The 9th Circuit, in U.S. v. Kincade (PDF), ruled that mandatory DNA testing of violent convicted felons on supervised release was constitutional; a dissent by Judge Alex Kozinski said that same logic could lead to mandatory testing of every American citizen: "The more DNA samples are included in the database, the better off we are: More guilty parties will be found, more innocents will be cleared and more unknown crime victims will be identified...")
The defendant in the current case in California, Jerry Albert Pool, is accused of possessing child pornography in the form of illegal images of minors on his computer, a felony. He has no prior criminal record and has pleaded not guilty.
Hollows ruled that in the case of felony charges lodged against a defendant by a judge or a grand jury--resulting in a formal finding of probable cause--mandatory DNA sampling was reasonable. He noted that he took no position on whether or not DNA sampling for misdemeanor offenses was reasonable and constitutional.
The list of possible federal felony charges includes ones you might expect, including counterfeiting and kidnapping. But it also includes some forms of peer-to-peer piracy, circumventing e-book protection, or using innocent words like "Barbie" on a sexually-explicit Web site.
"In utilizing the totality of the circumstances, the decision to impose the DNA testing requirement on pre-trial detainees or releasees seems clearly warranted, if not compelling," Hollows wrote. "An arrestee's identity obviously becomes a matter of legitimate state interest...While fears of a 'Big Brother' style government harassing or persecuting individuals based on genetic characteristics is always theoretically possible, that is not the purpose of the amendments before the court, nor is it at all likely."
In a move that some Silicon Valley insiders had anticipated might happen, Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly has announced his exploratory bid for the elected post as attorney general of California.
He has set up the Web site www.kelly2010.com as his online campaign headquarters. Kelly also has an official Facebook fan page for his campaign.
(Credit:
Kelly2010.com)
"Over the past year, many people I respect have asked me to run for California Attorney General in 2010. Today, after much consideration, I am announcing that I've launched a committee to further explore the race," Kelly, who is a Democrat, said in a statement. "As the next Attorney General of California, I would utilize my experience to protect California consumers, maintain an open and accountable government, and guarantee an effective legal system."
Kelly's background is in politics. In a video on his Web site, he explains that he got his start as a staffer on Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign and then at the White House, where he focused on establishing public service programs like AmeriCorps. Rumors that he was looking into a run for attorney general began to swirl late last year.
In his campaign, Kelly has indicated that he will run on a platform of high-tech innovation and accountability, particularly in the wake of economic decline and uncertainty.
"(At Facebook) I have dealt first-hand with the complex legal challenges and privacy issues that effect California businesses and consumers," Kelly explained in the video. "We need a strong consumer protection advocate as California's chief law enforcement officer, defending people against unfair practices and schemes. As California faces a budget deficit of more than $41 billion, rising home foreclosure rates, and an uncertain economic future, it is imperative that we prevent consumer fraud and protect California residents from scam artists offering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for home ownership, phony foreclosure avoidance scams, and any financial fraud."
Among the other issues he mentioned were online safety and privacy for both adults and children, and tech-savvy improvements to law enforcement and border patrol.
Facebook said in a statement that Kelly is not leaving his post to run for attorney general, at least not yet.
"Chris Kelly is a valued member of the Facebook Team and has been for the past several years," the statement read. "Chris is currently exploring a possible run for California Attorney General on his own time and in compliance with all applicable Facebook policies. If, over the next few months, Chris decides to devote himself full-time to campaign, he's indicated that he will take time off or a leave of absence to do so."
As an executive at a social network with over 200 million members that has become a Silicon Valley success stories, Kelly has credibility as a digital-age candidate. Yet under Kelly's watch, Facebook went through a number of embarrassing privacy flubs, most notably the launch of its Beacon advertising program--which some critics charged as intrusive.
Facebook was also at the center of a legal back-and-forth with several states' lawmakers about whether it was doing enough to keep its members safe from known sex offenders. That, however, appears to have ended in agreement and cooperation.
Kelly won't be the only Silicon Valley type running for statewide office. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a Republican, is running for governor. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has appealed to the Valley set with green-tech initiatives and "Second Life" interviews, has also launched an exploratory bid for governor. The state's elections are next fall.
California's current attorney general is Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
This post was expanded at 1:35 p.m. PT.
Google's advice on sidestepping a South Korean law against anonymous YouTube video postings and comments doesn't seem to be sitting well with some of the country's authorities.
Google, citing free-speech concerns, on Monday said it will comply with the Korean law--but by prohibiting uploads and comments rather than by requiring people to verify their identities. And it told people they could work around the constraint by visiting another country's version of the video-sharing site.
Now the backlash is beginning to set in, according to one Korean media report.
"Korea Communications Commission network policy official Hwang Cheol-jeung says that the commission will be examining whether or not Google has engaged in illegal activities in any of the various services it operates in South Korea," the Hankyoreh reported Friday, saying that could include many more Google activities than just YouTube.
The report also said Google's Korean chief, Lee Won-jin, defended the move on Korean TV. And an editorial in the same publication sided with Google, describing the law's origins in government's effort to "suppress criticism on the Internet" and calling the KCC's actions "childish."
Google didn't respond to a request for comment.
