Well…maybe specific isn’t quite the right word, actually. The quote from the Pandia article, by Senior Engineer Atle Arnes of the Inspectorate, asks:

“Why do the search engine store the IP addresses [of searchers] for so long and are they using them for?”

This is actually a pretty wide-reaching query – I’d certainly be very curious to see the answer to the second part of the question. Somehow, however, I suspect that Google’s answers won’t be leaked very far out into the public unless they obfuscate any interesting part of the answer. Of course, it’s entirely possible that what Google does with the information they collect is nothing, but I think few people would believe that.

Privacy is a chronic concern in the Internet age. There’s no question that the information available to search engines can easily identify a person associated with their queries, even without any IP address or other uniquely identifying information. What the holder’s of this information will do with it is a curious question.

In theory, Google employees could know my calendar, my bank information, have access to my email, my search history, have indexed my hard drive, and know what websites I’m affiliated with and have webmaster privileges for. That’s a LOT of information.

What does Google know about you?

AOL has now removed the database and apologized for the error of judgement which allowed this information to become public, this does little to relieve the concerns for the privacy of those whose searches were released.

Although the usernames have been anonymized and replaced with numeric sequences, these sequences still provide a track for the searches of a single user – which can easily provide everything necessary to make a personal identification. Many people, for example, perform vanity searches – if you observe that somebody has made a large number of searches for a particular name, this may mean they are actually that person. It also may mean that they know this person; or that they are stalking this person. Either way, this is a serious privacy concern!

In fact, some bloggers (prior to AOL’s removal of the dataset) already identified some rather disconcerting query groups. Can any law enforcement body conceivably let this issue go without attempting to gain access to the information? The public availability of information this alarming may greatly weaken the court’s resistance to the Department of Justice’s requests for private data. Although the courts have generally been supportive of privacy, this information could very easily sway a judge.

There’s a lot more information on this issue covered around the web:

• Adam D’Angelo
• Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Watch
• John Battelle
• News.com

Is it a greater censorship to withhold Google’s index entirely, or to provide a limited subset of their index? Maybe. However, when Google made the choice to accept China’s restrictions, they also made the choice to profit on those restrictions; and this is where the real difference lies.

The Associated Press reported yesterday on comments by Google co-founder Sergey Brin which indicated that he acknowledges that the company compromised their principles to enter the Chinese market:

We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference.

Sergey Brin

The sense of the article is that Google is now attempting to decide whether it is more sensible to continue with their censored project in China or to pull out of the marketplace – a possibly damning acknowledgement of their error. It’s hard to say what the public reaction may be to a withdrawal from China. On the one hand, many would be thrilled that Google had admitted their error and withdrawn. On the other, it would be a dangerous acknowledgement of a very expensive error of judgement.

The article also mentions that, apparently, most of Google’s Chinese customers are not actually using Google.cn.

Brin said Google is trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course. He said virtually all the company’s customers in China use the non-censored service.

This, of course, makes things more complicated. If they withdraw from China not out of principle, but because their project was unsuccessful, the public perception of their withdrawal is even less likely to be positive – since the decision would perhaps be more clearly grounded in business than principle.

Perhaps, then, their goal is to make Google.cn more successful prior to withdrawing. The principled choice to abandon a thriving business venture has greater clout than the business decision to abandon a failed venture.

See also:

• John Batelle – Yow. Brin Waffles on China

I don’t actually altogether agree with Danny Sullivan’s conclusions. In his final paragraph, he states:

We’ve had Google China head Kai-Fu Lee say how important insisting on and following principles should be. In the public speaking training video of Google CEO Eric Schmidt that’s making the rounds, we have him saying how important conflict and tolerance to other opinions are. Yet still caved in on both principles and tolerance when it came to doing business in China.

I’m not clear that Google has truly "caved in on both principles and tolerance". Yes, they have accepted censorship as a cost of doing business in China. Yes, censorship is a vile practice which seems to run counter to Google’s core philosophy. However, I don’t feel that Google has given in to the Chinese government to any greater degree than absolutely necessary.

These are the salient points of my argument:

• Google was already doing business in China, because the main Google site was already accessible in the country.
• Google was already censored in China, by the Chinese government.
• Google has made a public statement that they will protect user privacy:
  

  We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China.

• Google has also stated that they will continue to make the unfiltered Chinese language Google.com service available.

All in all, these decisions suggest to me that they are simply trying to cope as best they can with a problematic situation. Google can not operate in China without cooperating with Chinese law – but they can reduce their susceptibility to that law by holding private data out of the reach of the country’s legal access.

I don’t wish to claim that Google is necessarily doing good by making their censored entry into the Chinese market; but they are certainly not doing evil. They are merely maintaining status quo, and hopefully making a profit.

If I was going to be accusing a company of unethical behavior, my fingers would not be pointing at Google. Google has been targeted largely because they have always made a major issue of their ethical practices. It is an interesting practice to make a greater note of the minor slips from those who try the hardest than the major failures of those who hardly try. Try taking a close look at Yahoo, for example, which has recently been accused (for the third time) of helping jail a Chinese dissident. Although there is not yet any solid evidence of this, it would hardly be surprising following the previous cases.

Danny also points to a fascinating piece from the New York Times Magazine called Google in China: The Big Disconnect. This lengthy article discusses cultural differences which technology companies have needed to learn and leverage for the Chinese market, and also how those differences may influence the perception of information freedom. The article is far too rich to summarize here; suffice it to say that you should read it yourself.

Google’s official blog post on the matter states very clearly that they were successful – "Judge tells DoJ "No" on search queries". Google has been spared the need to provide millions of search queries to the government. However, they have not been spared entirely. They will still be required to supply 50,000 URLs from their index to the government.

Compared to the original data request – billions of URLs and two month’s worth of user’s search queries – this measly 50,000 URLs is nothing. A tiny fraction of a day’s queries for the search giant. Google has every reason to crow!

Google has the good fortune to have been the only one of the three major search competitors to have fought the Department of Justice on this issue. This gives it a badly-needed boost to it’s image as a member in good standing of the industry’s Junior Justice League. With the damages Google has suffered from the recent Chinese censorship fallout, the company needed a chance to demonstrate their moral superiority to Yahoo and MSN.

A large part of Google’s success, I believe, comes from the simple phrase "Do no evil." Regardless of the realities of a large corporation, the motivations driving the company are perceived as more egalitarian than their competitors. A court victory on privacy issues gives them great PR.

Nonetheless, the realities of business continue to press on Google. Recently, I Hate Google posted on the terms and conditions for Google Pages. He noticed specific elements in the terms and conditions such as:

Users outside of the United States agree to comply with their own local rules regarding online conduct and acceptable content, including laws regulating the export of data to and from the United States or your country of residence.

Clearly, Google is taking precautions to smooth the way should the censorship beast raise its ugly head – but not in favor of those who may be censored. No, they’re protecting their own backs. Good business – but not something they’ll necessarily publicize heavily.

It’s not easy to define Google’s corporate philosophy. "Do no evil" is simplistic and unsustainable in an international business arena. On many levels, evil can be easily avoided. I doubt Google will be likely to employ child labor or hire assassins, for example. But as an international corporation, the company must acknowledge a reasonable set of laws. Their dispute with the Department of Justice demonstrates that they are willing to fight for their principles – but they should not be expected to go too far. Being willing to take your principles to court is very reasonable, but had the federal judge ruled against Google, it is unreasonable to expect the company to continue to resist.

A company can’t remain viable if they will not acknowledge the laws of doing business. The defense of Google’s principles can and should be taken to the courtroom at every opportunity, but it can’t be taken further.

What I’m trying to say is that Google’s principles are a great thing – but the company won’t sacrifice their success on principle. As long as Google takes advantage of the appropriate means to defend itself, they are succeeding in the fight
against evil.

Although Google has not yet begun to offer Gmail or Blogger services in China, due to fears about being required to
hand data over to the government, this may act as a path to begin providing these
services.

Of course, as
Nathan Weinberg notes at Inside Google, this doesn’t solve their problems with the United States government. Perhaps they should move their US data into China!

Although I can accept that the data released is not necessarily associated with a specific person, the Center for Democracy in Technology makes an interesting comment:

"It’s never been a principle of law that people can read your e-mail as long as they don’t know who you are."

Jim Dempsey, CDT’s policy director

I also have my doubts about the claim that the examination of the data will be "cursory" – I haven’t seen any specific statements as to the Government’s intentions, and I can’t help but say that once the data is in the hands of the government, they are not necessarily restricted to the examination they have described.

If they could supply a decent idea of what they intended to do, perhaps they’d have a better case.