NEWS: Privacy Advocates v. Pornography Prosecutors

Google, Yahoo and MSN refused to assist when they were asked by Anti Porn legislator to hand over search statistics. As a result, they had been subpoenaed by the Bush Administration for the information they asked for in their effort to fight Porn online. All three search engines responded differently. The various issues raised in their defence was the protection of the privacy of its users, lack of useable specific data retained and that the information handed over did not include personal information.

As a bystander observer, is such a process of obtaining data reflective of the Bush Administration's view of its position regarding privacy protection? Unfortunately the problem with porn appears to far outweigh that concern. Hopefully, the process will in fact not result in the breach of the privacy of the users of these search engines.

TechWeb Search Engines, Free Speech Google, Yahoo, MSN Subpoenaed In Anti-Porn Effort

UPDATE: CNET NEWS.com has published some useful FAQs on the Google subpoena by the US Justice Department on its database statistics. CLICK HERE for the FAQ