Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

It's great to see someone standing up for privacy. It's a bit sad that occurences like this are so few and far between, now-a-days.

Maybe my Google stock will bounce back now...

Good work Google!

To be fair, this particular request by the Department of Justice wasn't actually a direct threat to any of the users' privacy. They basically requested a list of search queries that have been used on Google with no information regarding who did those searches, as well as a list of websites that Google has indexed. There's often a big difference between what is really a privacy concern and what is merely perceived to be a privacy concern, as we all saw when Gmail was new. In this case, it was Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AOL who failed to anticipate the public reaction to the decision.

On the other hand, I was very much in favor of Google fighting this subpoena, not merely because of PR reasons, but also because the U.S. government has been overstepping its authority in too many areas lately and it's about time some influential bodies start making stands against them. A list of search queries isn't that big of a concern, but as recent history has shown, they would be eager to milk any momentum towards increased power for all it's worth. This is a nice safe place to put your foot down and demand that they go no further.

Great. Now Google can pretend to have disobeyed, can make the government happy to an end and can show up as a winner and revolter, to be celebrated by the mass.

Only if Google refuses to obey Ware's demands they may be considered to be 'not evil'. I know this will be seen different since some of you folks are employed, or at least payed by Google. But hell; I have the right of an own opinion also.

Just because the searcher's information was not requested does not mean the request didn't invade anyone's privacy. Consider search phrases of the form, "my son Nigel McDougal - gay?".

Seems contrived until you observe the unusual and idiosyncratic ways in which many people actually use search engines (such as typing in web addresses and then clicking the first result rather than using the address bar)--just stand in the lobby of a Google building and watch the queries that tick by.

There are probably more believable examples, but it doesn't matter how contrived this one is, because it *could* happen, I assure you it *has* happened, and it should be able to happen, because people assume that the phrases they type into that search box are not freely available to anyone who asks. The fact that only unusual phrases may incur privacy violations doesn't change anything.

Much as I respect Google as a company, it's important to remember that the reason why they refused the request was because they thought that it would require too many resources to fulfil and would force it to give up trade secrets, not because they wanted to protect user's privacy, though they'll undoubtedly like the good publicity. Additionally, under the PATRIOT act, the US government can ask for far more information than this particular request anyway, and Google can't even tell anyone about it.

Before we all lay down at the alter of Google, we should remember that they didn't show the same amount of "Independence" or "Standing up for it's users" in China, where they agreed to massive censorship at The Request of The Communist Government.

And their search engine partners have already given information to The Chinese Government that resulted in Long jail sentences.

Yay! "for standing Up for themselves and their users"! :p

I thought Google was a government project anyway (indexing everything, reading everyone's email, and [with Gdrive] housing everyone's files).

This request was just a coverup.

Filtering stuff that China, the U.S., and Germany require by law is hardly comparable to giving up personal information about users. The problems with their "search engine partners" was from blogging and e-mail services, which explains why Google isn't offering GMail or Blogger in China.

Yeah and lets all remember why the DOJ was requesting this information in the first place...

"The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches."

So unless you either 1) Allow children to vist YOUR porn site OR 2) Don't care if children look at porn, you really don't and never DID have anything to worry about. Of course I have no clue what you do in your own home so maybe you're into that. I'M NOT.

However as a parent I support anyone who DOES ANYTHING to help promote measures to stop this. In my opinion Google lost my respect, though they may get my click-thru.

The complaints about Google's decision in China are just ignorant or unrealistic, in my opinion. They basically had two options with China. One option would be to stay as they were, meaning they don't deliberately filter anything, but the ISPs regularly block Google results pages rendering the entire website practically unusable. This is obviously a very bad situation. The other option was to allow Chinese users to continue accessing the same unfiltered service under the same terms, but also provide a more reliable (but filtered as the law demands) alternative that the Chinese people can use. The alternative indicates exactly when results are filtered, and they only filter what they must to keep from getting shut down by the Chinese government.

Looking at these two choices, it seems like a no-brainer to me: Google made the right choice. It's the choice that most benefits the Chinese users. Some have suggested that Google should boycott China, which is completely ridiculous, since their initial state (practically no access) was effectively the same as any boycott would be and the Chinese government didn't care in the slightest. In fact, they'd probably prefer that Google doesn't provide their service to the Chinese people, since Google's stated mission is the opposite of what the government wants.

Regarding pornography on the Web, I feel it's the parents' responsibility to keep the kids away from it. I really don't like the idea of the government dictating how you can raise your kids (which, by doing part of the parenting for you, is essentially what they're doing). Imagine if the government decided that Islam was by nature a bad religion and wrote up laws to keep kids away from it. Christian parents might like the idea, but where does that leave good moral Muslim families? You might say that something like pornography can't be compared to something like religion, but as far as this kind of government activity is concerned, if they view both as bad, it may very well be the same thing in their eyes. Let them take a little control away from the individual/household and it's easier for them to take more.

And really, the availability of pornography isn't harmful to kids if you've done a good job at teaching them the consequences of engaging in sexual activity before they're old enough. Again, parents should be doing the parenting, not just handing the job over to the government.

"While Google stood up for itself and its users, and won!"

That sentence sounds a bit strange even in my Swedish ears. :)

David H, I'm still not sure that practicing self-censorship in order to please an authoritarian government was "making the right choice".