Google disses Government

[Steve]

The US Government has come under fire from Google following its recent request to be given details of users' searches. In court documents Google has said the request was "so uninformed as to be nonsensical". So, what about China, then?

Google’s position would be a lot stronger if it had told the Chinese government where to go when it made similar requests. Now the Bush administration could argue that if Google turns over data to China why can’t it accord the similar courtesy by spying for its home government.

[The Inquirer]

[ionicle]

ha! serves em right tbh lol...they shouldnt have asked for info...this is only fair

[ecat]

And the US Government's position would be stronger had it not taken Google et all to task over complying with the Chinese government?

Personally I think all three sides are at fault somewhere along the way: China for censorship, Google, Yahoo etc for complying and the US for prying. Maybe a summary would help:

China: Still a mostly closed country, therefore acting in character
Google etc: Commercial enterprises trying to maximise profit, therefore acting in character
US Government: Champions of liberty and freedom of speech, hum, <whisper> best not to comment.

[zhenboy]

FYI, China is NOT a *mostly closed country*...

Google had too many problems with Chinese goverment. One of the most important reasons is www.baidu.com , this Chinese search engine declined to be the best search engine in China, they alwasy have problems with Google. Goolge failed to perform good enough when it comes to search in Chinese characters. I knew that Google's ip address was blocked a couple of times in China... You see what I mean?

[Cobalt]

Google, Yahoo etc for complying

Google didn't comply, thats what the whole issue was about.

[Spud1]

what right have the courts, or the us government for that matter, to demand that google complies?

Surely it is up to Google who they provide their services/information to? Unless they are deliberately withholding information pertaining to an ongoing legal case/inquiry, which they are not as far as I can tell?