ATS: Feds Go After Google Data

The sad part is that the information will be turned over in the end no matter how badly google wants to refuse them. If the court process is drawn out google stock will continue to drop and they will have to cave just to get the stock out of a nose dive. The longer the holdout goes on the worse off Google will be so I would honestly say two weeks is the most they will hold out if their stocks dropping trend continues (already down from the higher 400s to 399) so they will have to do something soon to shake this. Any bets on how low Google will be when all this finally is resolved?

Originally posted by Indy

Originally posted by elderban
The law is not for child pornography, but to "to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors".

That is total nonsense. There is already a tool to prevent access to minors and it isn't used. Want to take a wild guess as to what it is?

PARENTS!!!

But these clowns don't want to take responsibility for their children. They don't want to be held accountable for what their children do up in their room with the door closed. Its these pathetic whiners that say "but I didn't know." They don't want to know. They want to go through life ignorant and unaware. If kids are surfing porn sites perhaps the family should lose the right to have internet access. If these parents would spend some time with their kids instead of just giving them toys to make them go away then we wouldn't have this problem. But too many "parents" are more concerned about themselves. They want someone else to watch their kids for them... but for free of course. I mean you can't make them pay for it. That wouldn't be right in their eyes.

/end rant

I agree...too many parents use the tv and internet as babysitters and do not monitor either and blame others when something is wrong....grow up america and raise your children

Originally posted by alternateheaven
As I poked around the internet this evening it seems that now not only has Google been targeted by the US goverment for not sharing its data but MSN and Yahoo were given similar requests with which they complied.

Scarey, but entirely not surprising.

I may be a bit out there on this but I think this situation brings up questions about the intel gathering abilities of the US goverment, since all theories about their capabilities seem to point to a sort of omnipotence in the electronic world. If that were the case then why would they need to request information from all these search engines when they could get it themselves through various black boxes forced upon ISPs everywhere? This could be quite a telling move by the government, at least from a geek's persepective on the whole internet snooping concept in that they tip their hand and either show themselves to be inept at the skills we think they possess or in fact just in fact too lazy or cheap to go after the data we've thought they could all along.

You know it's funny, but I worked for the government for a few years gathering "statistical data" for "informational purposes only" from "participants" that were "randomly selected" etc and it struck me one day...after working on this 4 year logitudinal study of the "economic situation" of America...

I wondered, if the government is so omnipotent, then why am I gathering the type of data I am? WHat they mostly wanted wasn't available through people's taxes or SS#. It was under the table incomes, assessts and people in and out of households. It was all the data they couldn't get by accessing your social security number...however...in this survey your social security number is asked for, so then all this data is then linked to you by your SS#.

Seems now by gathering such data from search engines, as they have and want to, they have a new way of linking information of your internet practices to you via IP addresses-it is another means of gathering data of what Americans are spending their time and energies doing and identifying people of certain internet practices, and ID-ing them via their IP address and profiling this way, right?

It became clearer my job was a bit more big-brother-ish to me when I realized besides the same econmically related questions (asked of participants every 3 months for 4 years) there also all these other questions thrown in that differred each time...everything from time spent watching television to time spent on the internet etc...who used the Internet most in the house, and how often and for what uses (recreational, research etc) imagine that!

Originally posted by Indy

Originally posted by elderban
The law is not for child pornography, but to "to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors".

That is total nonsense. There is already a tool to prevent access to minors and it isn't used. Want to take a wild guess as to what it is?

PARENTS!!!

But these clowns don't want to take responsibility for their children. They don't want to be held accountable for what their children do up in their room with the door closed. Its these pathetic whiners that say "but I didn't know." They don't want to know. They want to go through life ignorant and unaware. If kids are surfing porn sites perhaps the family should lose the right to have internet access. If these parents would spend some time with their kids instead of just giving them toys to make them go away then we wouldn't have this problem. But too many "parents" are more concerned about themselves. They want someone else to watch their kids for them... but for free of course. I mean you can't make them pay for it. That wouldn't be right in their eyes.

/end rant

I DISAGREE-well not entirely.

First, while I agree way too many parents use the tv and internet as babysitters and do not monitor it's use-THIS IS NOT the problem of which they are targetting entirely, or proposing to target here

Saying its all about parenting, and lack of proper parenting, and no proper supervision etc, is just casting the blame on all parents, where indeed most the prevention responsibility lies in proper supervision, however not all the BLAME for pornography exposure lies there!

These porn predators have a very unique way of targeting the youth and the ignorant (the older and wiser, just go directly to their porn sites of choice and buy memberships-no targeting necessary) by creating websites and POP-UPs that correspond with certain misspelled words so search engines will inadvertantly send unsuspecting people to these porn sites designed this way.

So, for instance, say you are a 14 year old student who tries a google for "American histery" while your stay-at-home nurturing mother is in the same room folding laundry and appropriately monitoring your internet use, just by being the good helpful involved mom we all know every mom should be who always helps with homework and knows your every move...until the good dad comes home from work by 5:15pm sharp and takes over while Mom finishes dinner...

but when instead of actual history being found through your 14 year old typing skills, or just mispelling, you then get a link for "get a lesson in American Histery" which sounds perfect for your homework, you click on it and quickly it is apparent it is a porn site for everything from American girls acting as teachers to gay male porn from the "HIStery" part of the name. Shocked and embarrassed you-the child-try to click it off, but many pop ups keep coming...etc...you have been exposed, violated, and possiblily intrigued now.

Now, what if then that child for fun or out of confusion wanted to show their friends etc...just how a yahoo search could do that, or about the pporno stuff theyd never seen and wanted to show it so their friends could go WHOA! I mean come on-what a find! Or out of curiously wanted to check into it again...or what if the pop ups come on every time they sign on after that...sure again the 24/7 monitoring of "good" parents would come into play-because parents don't need sleep...or better yet, lock up the computer at night because you woulodn't want even good honor student kids to think they could be trusted right?

Parents are the BEST source of prevention but parenting is not bulletproof armour in protecting kids from pornography,-especially unsolicited sites popping up, and designed to target youth/misspelling etc in search engines. Sometimes the links sound like they are from other kids..."Hey want to see something cool? Check this out!" when the search was for fictitional characters in popular fantasy genre books for adolescent boys etc...

So whether it is the government's concern in this area, or their guise to rape the internet for identifying information for profiling, it is what they are claiming to want to crack down on isn't it? Not just youths seeking porn, but youths targeted by, and youths too easily able to access, certain porn sites- intentionally or not, and how search engines are used for such.

I am a good parent and have good kids (albeit too young to surf the net yet) but I just get tired of so many people saying everything is a parents fault! Parents have the greatest responsibility in the world if you asked me, and shouldn't be taken lightly, and often is...however many people pointing the parenting finger don't even have kids! So it makes us parents easy prey....parents are NOT the reason pornography is a problem for the youth, but can be key in overcoming it in our own homes, and most pertinent to this issue at hand, parents are not at fault when search engines lead kids to easily accessable pornography sites

/ my own rant

[edit on 23-1-2006 by think2much]

[edit on 23-1-2006 by think2much]

[edit on 23-1-2006 by think2much]

I'm not computer savy ... so someone explain this to me.

Google is HUGE. How can they possibly keep track of
who googles up porn sites? Is that what the government
is looking for?? People who go to child porn sites, or are
they looking for the porn sites and those that run them?

If we can't find the terrorists when they put up web pages
how can we find computer savy child porners??

Would Google even keep that kind of info? How?

Originally posted by FlyersFan
How can they possibly keep track of
who googles up porn sites? Is that what the government
is looking for?? People who go to child porn sites, or are
they looking for the porn sites and those that run them?

If we can't find the terrorists when they put up web pages
how can we find computer savy child porners??

Would Google even keep that kind of info? How?

Hmmmm...my first thoguht...*me thinks thou dost protest (er, question) too much*

But seriously...every computer has an IP address and it can be tracked to your physical geographic location and through other means identify you as a person specifically as well. It's your fingerprint in cyberspace.

The idea I believe is that the governnet through search engines now can profile people as terrorist, anti-Americans, thorugh identifying your IP address and linking it with your searches for "American conspiracies", "how to make a dirty bomb" "was 911 planned by the American Government" etc...

Now for your pornography habit, er concern, there is a problem with the targetting of youth and the availability of pornography to minors that is a real problem, and one of the main excuses apparently they are giving to take over these search engines to try to monitor this problem, track it and stop illeagal practices etc....

again...your IP address is your cyber fingerprint-this is important to remember

HTH

since reading the google thread earlier, I changed my search engine...and it is quite amazing that I am now able to source a lot of alternative info., previously this info did not come up using google... Now reading about google bowing to China.. www.abc.net.au...

bit of a worry...not that I surf porn anyway..but this is an invasion of my civil liberties..
what next??