Adam Fields (weblog)

This is a fascinating deconstruction of the court documents and letters available so far:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060119-161802

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. 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.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/13657386.htm

I’m sort of out of analysis about why this is bad, because I’ve said it all before.

See (particularly 4 and 5):

1. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/04/21/google-adds-prove-adam-right-button/
2. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/05/06/they-dont-necessarily-know-who-you-are/
3. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/06/23/beware-the-google-threat/
4. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/05/08/google-is-destroying-the-private/
5. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/05/05/google-wants-your-logs/
6. http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/11/21/google-really-wants-your-logs/

It really comes down to one thing.

If data is collected, it will be used.

It’s far past the time for us all to take an interest in who’s collecting what.