devilizing or divinizing Google (was: for a billion of pages or justone,the decision - andlogic - should be the same

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: pat hache <tercasa () prodigy net mx>
Date: September 3, 2006 11:41:53 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: devilizing or divinizing Google (was: for a billion of pages  
or justone,the decision - andlogic - should be the same



I think Pat has overlooked one distinction in the google issue
when he says

> or should we consider that Google is acting as a judge deciding
> what,s good or bad, for any reason they should be  solely responsable
> to appreciate ?

The article notes that it was a Brazilian _court_ who ordered the
records, vs the US _Justice_Department_ (a division of the executive
branch).  Now, I will not pretend to understand the Brazilian system
of government, but both Wikipedia and the CIA Factbook seem to
indicate that the Judicial branch is independent of the Executive
branch, much as it is in the US.  Assuming the similarity, I hope we
can see the difference:

- In this case, a judge _has_ reviewed the request and ordered the
  information be turned over.  Google is complying with what appears
  to be a legal request.

- In the US case, there has been no such review, so Google is
  (apparently) perfectly within its legal rights to refrain from
  turning the information over.

ok . but let's keep on on such idea. an administration in some  
country , being such any part of the executive or the judiciary  
branch, asks or orders the local branch of a multinational internet  
service provider to execute or just obey instructions and  give a  
page or a billion pages.
as Allen wrote

 Now, what if some country (and I will not name names) that did not
have such protections in place made a request, no matter how legal it
was in that country?  What is Google's legal obligation?  What is the
obligation of the international community?  Doing or not doing evil
is, unfortunately, not always black and white, no matter what a motto
might declare.

who will define the level of necessary protections to the users  of  
the service  and the "legality"  of the administration asking for the  
information ? the local manager of the service, the local Human  
rights commission, an international court of Justice in Den Haage ?  
the legal dept inside the local service or their headquarters ?
So, if in some country where human rights are not exactly following  
the desiderata of the members  on this list , the local service  
provider (eventually following orders from his central headquarters)  
refuses to comply a "legal" order to turn over the information asked,  
who will decide when some "internationally valid" consensus should be  
applied to solve the point ? There is no international court to  
decide as for human rights,war crimes or commercial matters.

Meanwhile comes again the point about the decision of the service  
provider to  quite completely and solely "decide" the quantity and  
the quality of the information he could or coudn't turn over . To  
create with each request and their response a kind of "English common  
law" about what  to do, combining the necessity to keep his customers  
protected even from legal inquiries if he decides so, like when a  
journalist protects its sources when "transmitting" information  
through some newsmedia or even the internet, if such service  
provider  so decides to deny turn "over" the information he compiles  
or transmits through any(?) medium.

-- The progressively created "common law" could then be used locally  
at least, until internationally promoted and accepted as  
international common practice of the  "WWW" law. 
-- meanwhile what's is the legal obligation of an internet service  
provider when asked to reveal information about the activities of any  
user using their channel to access sources they compile on their  
servers ?   (btw service providers already use such information ,like  
patterns and the sites you refer to, f.i. sending you cookies...and  
sell it to gain profit ,  and there the legal problem is stil  
pending, and will probably become much more important in the future  
than the turn over to legal inquiries of any amount of pages of info)

-- then imagine, just imagine, what happened when the first monks or  
priests were asked (by a secular authority) to reveal the information  
compiled from religiously motived confessions and figured how to  
refuse answering, and compare that with the progressively quite  
similar traditionnal rites some www service providers are imposing by  
the evolution of our times and the modern necessities and amenities  
we use on a permanent basis relying sometimes blindly on those  
services  and their oligopole ? Having "Blind Faith" (?) in those ?

shouldn't those service providers in wich so many commons and lords  
have by necessity such blind faith become kind of sacred ?
leaving the horrible secrets or silly things they compile away from  
state inquiries, any kind , for any reason ?

Will Google be authorized de facto to act as a devil or a divine  
providence regarding those legal matters ?

Isn't Google already some "kind of divine" (?) providence for  
information seekers ?

just a few silly thought this sunday morning, as instead of going to  
a mass ritual nearby, i participate to another ritual of apparent  
intercourse of ideas , on the already quite sacrosaint web.

Patrice.

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