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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (183234)	1/19/2006 11:18:01 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 186894

RE:"So glad to see the Bush administration fighting the pornography menace. China is so far ahead of the US in monitoring internet activity, I guess Bush figured its time to catch up." Wow, something you actually like about Bush...moment of silence. <G>

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (183234)	1/20/2006 12:23:03 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

OT, Yes, China is ahead of the US in monitoring the Internet politically. But in terms of sexual content, NO, China has few sanction. On almost every major mainstream web site of China, including the People's Daily site, one can see some soft porn staff quite often. And here is an example (parental guide is advised). And can you image this kind of pictures regularly show up on any US news web site, or even some regular entertainment/non-adult web sites? NO, I have never ever seen so many sexually explicit pictures on any mainstream web sites in the US. business.sohu.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (183234)	1/20/2006 5:52:06 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 186894

too bad Bush not running again.. This time you could vote for him. g

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (183234)	1/27/2006 12:51:42 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

OT Lizzie, Google is doing the right thing here, because supplying searches does indeed disclose private information. ( Microsoft can't do the right thing here because the anti-trust threat makes it impossible for Microsoft to take any strong position against the govt - political blackmail, unless it's about technology. ) How does a simple search disclose private information? Examples: 1. CNN had a headline story about a nasty plane crash, where everyone died, federal authorities declared it an accident. What CNN didn't know, was the mission the people were engaged in and how much another group stood to gain by the crash. (A scandal in itself.) Neither group had any desire to expose the scandal to the media, especially since the crash was a fluke accident. I learned about the scandal prior to the plane crash so was super shocked when I read about their plane crash. I did a Google search to see if the media had picked up on the scandal. Typed their names, plane crash, and a description of the scandal and apparently no one knew about the scandal. Of course, if Google were to hand over this particular search to the students that are going to work on this project, they would certainly learn about the scandal, something which the media doesn't even know about, through the descriptive search itself. That is an invasion of their privacy. 2. You probably have done Google searches on things just to see what's public information and what's private because you've done consulting for public companies. Well, hand that search over to a bunch of students, and it's not going to be private anymore. 3. I once did a search on a Berkeley professor that doesn't appear to get along with another professor at a different school due to competitive reasons (they both compete for similar grants). The descriptive search terms used were quite humorous, and am certain this Berkeley professor would not want his peers to know he doesn't get along very well with some people in academia. That would be a privacy invasion for the two that don't get along. On a different note, imagine the following hypothetical example: 1. Consider if a Sociology feminist professor (forgot the exact name of her area of study, so sociology might be wrong) that became rather popular after writing several consumer publications (not just academia but consumer books), but then (this next part is hypothetical) say she decided to have a nose job to help lift the number of interviews she gets with the media, but worries that word got out about her nose job (Chronicle is always publishing stuff on Berkeley profs), so she does a google search for her name, Berkeley and nose job to see if any of her students noticed her nose change and wrote their suspicions about it on their blog. Now imagine if her particular (hypothetical) search was one of the searches included in those handed over to the Berkeley students for analysis (for those that don't know, the search results are going to be handed over to Berkeley for them to work on this for the govt.) Well, word would get out and her book sales would plummet because her credibility would be shot, so she'd probably lose her job too. That would be a privacy invasion. In conclusion, as disgusting as pornography is, turning over the searches is indeed a privacy invasion because searches can be descriptive of private information unrelated to pornography, so Google is doing the right thing here. The govt has gone way, way too far by asking Google for its searches. Additionally, the way the law works, it sets a precedent for future privacy invasions. And that's probably the most important thing about this case. Btw, the military companies would love to get their hands on Google's searches, that is for sure. One has said so itself. You can't tell me these searches aren't going to wind up in their hands. They want it, they'll get it if Google doesn't win this case. Duke is right - the govt didn't want to cough up the funds to pay for a market research report to any Silicon Valley firm because we're liberal, we're not at all military like the San Diego area. The govt can go jump with their privacy invasion demands. Regards, Amy J