Google, The Government and The Internet

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal there was an interesting story titled In Threat To Internet's Clout, Some Are Starting Alternatives (link here for seven days) . Basically, it talked about how the US Government, specifically the Commerce Department, oversees ICANN for assigning web addresses and developing all those nifty .xyz's like .XXX for porn sites (coincidently it is delaying this assignment). A lot of foreign countries don't like the fact that the US Government, for all intense purposes, owns the internet and can shut down any internet suffixes in the event of a war or terror attack.

Now, what I found fascinating about this article is how fearful a lot of countries are that we could shut down a part of the internet. So, under an anti-Bush cover, they said they need to build their own country specific internet. These new country internets would allow access to ICANN addresses but not the reverse, in effect, shutting themselves out of US traffic.

I have nothing against setting up back-up plans, but one has to wonder why something that is working so well and has brought the world closer together, would need competing technologies, which would in effect, split the world up again. I think the only group of people that needs to fear discrimination are the folks that are interested in .XXX sites.

Speaking of adults sites, did you see the news regarding Google and the US Government today? It seems that in order to comply with the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 that President Clinton signed into law, the government must prove that existing "filtering software are less effective that the statutory restrictions in protecting minors" from you guessed it sexually explicit material. Remember this is a law President Clinton signed into law.

In order to prove this, the Government needs non-PII data from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. And you know who refused? You know smart guy - Google.

Now I'm not going to debate the merits of the law and by reading the subpoena, you can see that the Government tried to work with Google, but Google refused. Personally, I think it is about time that Google grew up and realized that it is not some cute little search site and has to behave like one of the big boys. A company with $118 Billion market cap and likes to compete with MSN and Yahoo, should know that if you get big and rich enough, eventually the US Government pays attention to you.

Don't agree with me? Read the subpoena for yourself and decide.

Morals of the story here? 1 - the US Government is in control of the internet. 2 - be careful what you search on - you never know who is looking. 3 - You want to run with the big dawgs, get out of your Cali cube!!!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

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