Begin forwarded message:
From: Henrik Brameus <blondino@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 21, 2006 2:38:10 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Search queries *can* contain personal
information
Hello Dave,
If you think it's relevant, please forward to IP
Henrik
One thing that I find curious about this whoe incident is that
Google's privacy policy
(http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html#information) sas the
following about information sharing:
<blockquote>Information sharing
Google only shares personal information with other companies or
individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:
- We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of
any sensitive personal information.
- We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated
companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of
processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these
parties agree to process such information based on our instructions
and in compliance with this Policy and any other appropriate
confidentiality and security measures.
- We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or
disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy
any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable
governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service,
including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect,
prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or
(d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of
Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.
</blockquote>
In the third bullet point they say that they will share it to satisfy
any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable
governmental request. IANAL, but I thought that a legally obtained
subpoena would fall into that category. If the request on top of that
are search URLs and search terms from one week, all separatd from
personal identifying information, then I think that they are creating
a storm in teacup. If thy were to challenge the legality of this,
shouldn't they (again IANAL) at least file something to that effet,
rathere than just flatly refusing to comply.
Henrik
On 21/01/06, David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 20, 2006 7:59:03 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: more on Search queries *can* contain personal
information
Lauren commented on the wide range of things that people search for,
and it keeps getting wider as Google and other search engines
add features. I regularly type in names, phone numbers, addresses,
and lat/longs, IP addresses, AS numbers, patent numbers, Cisco part
numbers, etc., sometimes to find maps, or businesses, or phone book
information, and there are a number of websites I use for business
for which Google is a much more effective search tool than the site's
own indexes. Sometimes I've even typed in my own name when looking
for cached versions of mailing list articles in the distant past
(non-specific ego-surfing isn't very useful if your name's not
sufficiently unique - AltaVista had over 50,000 hits for people
with similar names when it first came out - but there are times that
specific searches are useful.)
As somebody who regularly used Google during the specified period,
do I have a right to object to the court if Gonzales wants my data?
I hereby declare any phone numbers, addresses, and medical
information
in my searches to be Confidential, though the subpoena doesn't allow
the recipients to declare their entire document as Confidential.
Furthermore, the subpoena indicates that for every document not
produced by Google due to confidentiality or trade secrecy, the
respondents want the authors' and recipients' names, addresses,
dates,
etc. - but for this type of information, that disclosure includes
the confidential portion and more, not less.
Gonzales et al. allege that they're looking for information about the
effectiveness of web filters as a tool for protecting children,
so they
want to look at popular search terms to see what people are
looking at.
But if I search for a term like "Scooter Libby", am I looking for
information about him as an friend, or a Republican Henchperson,
or a well-known pornographer? His original request wanted _all_ the
search terms, including my attempts to find relatives' current
mailing
addresses, and makes it available to all attorneys and employees
of the
Department of Justice who are involved in the case - but that's
all of
them, given Gonzales's War on Obscenity, and nothing in the subpoena
forbids them from making other uses of the information, such as using
my searches for medical marijuana information for Drug War purposes.
Brad Templeton talks about issues of identifying IP addresses, and
the
Tor project certainly helps - but there are other web surfing privacy
tools, like The Anonymizer and other proxies, which are generally
faster, more scalable, and effective at protecting content, though
they're still susceptible to subpoenas for any information that
they may have retained.
Thanks; Bill Stewart
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Henrik Brameus - http://www.benitel.com/ - blondino@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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