This just in!

[^Kaji]

Govt attempts to decide fate of universe based on internet search engine statistics.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13657303.htm

I find this retarded. They intend to invade our privacy even further in the name of stopping any and everyone from viewing porn of any kind. No chance this newfound power will be abused...

It seems to be based on this singular idea: "the government has subpoenaed search engines to develop a factual record of how often Web users encounter online porn and how Web searches turn up material they say is ``harmful to minors.''

This apparently gives them the right to monitor in unprecedented detail your every move on a far greater scale than most people realize. This also in no way has anything to do with minors seeing harmful content as there is no known way to see who is sitting at the computer being tracked at any given time. The all knowing geniuses in charge of this little fiasco have no doubt realized this fact and fully intend to sweep it under the rug with their usual pandering to the media, etc.

Now this may seem benign on the surface, we're safe right? Yes, maybe, for now. This however sets precedents that will remain in effect through future administrations, and considering the bad press christianity has been getting lately, en mass, this will be turned against us.

Maybe that's a bit much, but that's the feeling I get off of it. Discuss.

[Slater]

I don't see anything in here about trying to stop people from being able to access porn; it seems that they're trying to make it harder for minors to access porn, which would be a good thing.

[SonicRose]

[quote="Slater"]I don't see anything in here about trying to stop people from being able to access porn]

I agree. It seems it's targeted specifically at halting internet pornography. What about privacy anyways? Is there something on your computer or sites that are being visited which are not altogether wholesome? Far as I know, most companies fire employees looking at porn on company computers/time... this would help weed things out. Might shake some things up... who doesn't like having those skeletons in the closet coming out to play?

[SonicRose]

Just as an aside note; I want my privacy most when I'm doing something I shouldn't...

[uc pseudonym]

I'm going to move this to Computing in hopes that discussion will focus on search engines, not on politics. The latter, of course, have been deemed permanently off topic for these boards and can cause the locking of threads. While I'll allow this to continue, please keep this in mind.

[Puritan]

Well, I can understand the protection of minors side of things, but I think the privacy issue is important as well. Yeah, privacy can be misused for sin, but at the same time I don't know if I want the government to harvest information about what I search for online.

Politics aside, would this information actually be useful if targeted at specific people or only misleading? I have done research into stuff for schoolwork or general knowledge (nuclear weaponry, fringe religious groups, extremist hate groups) that might look bad in the wrong light. From a pure search standpoint, look at it this way. I read the Turner Diaries (dreadful book) in the past. If the government were to watch what books I pick up and read, they would generally see mostly good and acceptable books, but at times they would see stuff like this that I read for information or knowledge about dreadful people or ideas. I think search engine information is similar. While it could give the government the information they want (which looks like what percentage of search results are pornographic), if targeted to specific people it could, at times, give misleading information.

[blkmage]

It's pointless. There's no way from the data that they can tell whether or not the search was made by a minor or not, or even if it was made by a human and not an automated query. Yes, the precedents this will set are quite disturbing.

There is a reason we have a right to privacy. And it's not so that we can hide the more unpleasant things we do. It's not such a wise idea to give up your rights so readily.

[Technomancer]

Can we get a better source that this one? If Google merely complied statistics on websearches that would not in and of itself be an invasion of privacy. The question at hand is whether or not these will include your personal statistics as well. However, I still don't like the idea of the government forcing such a policy on a company, when the goals, scope and effectiveness seem so unclear.

[Kaligraphic]

Okay, here's an easy way to get overall (admittedly statistically meaningless) information: Google Zeitgeist

It gives a list of the most popular search terms of the week. They offer historical information further broken down, but that's currently only available through November '05. A canny investigator could craft the special url http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=whatever&btnG=Google+Search - or they could do things the easy way, and type whatever into the search box on Google's front page. (btw, that url is the Google search for the word whatever)

It surely wouldn't be that hard to find out, and you might learn something about the effectiveness of Google's "safesearch" feature. Otherwise the data is still statistically meaningless. The browsing habits of minors in general are also not identical to those of the world at large, and a huge host of factors render massive data dumps like this "statistically stupid".

To test the response to a given case, use the parameters of that case, not random parameters that may vary wildly from those for which you desire results. A.K.A. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

[Puritan]

This link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4630694.stm is probably a better source about the google data. I think the real concern is not the data being asked for(which seems to ba anonymous), but the fact that the government is demanding this data and the consequences if online search data is regularly accessed by the government. My biggest concern is similar to most other people who posted: This information looks like it will be useless for most meaningful analyses, and trying to make decisions based on such data seems, to me, flawed and may lead to flawed decisions.

[Tringard]

The article I used for reference to this story yesterday covered all 3 search engines (msn, yahoo, and google) response to this request. It seems to be worth noting that while yahoo and msn did comply with the request, they claim to have removed any personal identifying information - so the request may not be as anonymous as we hope.

I know whenever I clear out my cookies, I have cookies for google and yahoo. Looking at them now a few seem to be legitimate (for email), but then there are these other ones that are 'poorly' labelled. Who knows what those keep track of?