BB FANS

US demands Google user information

The Bush Administration has demanded that Google Inc provide details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, according to lawyers for the US Justice Department in papers filed yesterday in a San Jose court.

Privacy advocates have been increasingly scrutinising Google’s practices as the company expands its offerings to include email, driving directions, photo-sharing, instant messaging and Web journals.

Although Google pledges to protect personal information, the company’s privacy policy says it complies with legal and government requests. Google also has no stated guidelines on how long it keeps data, leading critics to warn that retention is potentially forever given cheap storage costs.

The US government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches, as part of an effort to revive an internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the US Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online, and it would have punished violators with fines of up to $50,000 or time in prison. The high court ruled that technology such as filtering software may better protect children.

The matter is now before a federal court in Pennsylvania, and the government wants the Google data to help argue that the law is more effective than software in protecting children from porn.

The Mountain View-based company told The San Jose Mercury News that it opposes releasing the information because it would violate the privacy rights of its users and would reveal company trade secrets.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s efforts “vigorously.”

“Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,” Wong said. breakingnews

It's ironic that Bush is saying that...Type miserable failure into google and see what you get

is it only me that never ususes google ,, but other more kool engines

reckon it's ogle you use

woogle maybe when i can spell it i might use it

There ya go....even typed in the search for you

Rightwing group offers students $100 to spy on professors

· Republican graduate's site prompts witch-hunt fears
· 31 academics listed as 'worthy of scrutiny'

Dan Glaister in Los Angeles, Thursday January 19, 2006, The Guardian

It is the sort of invitation any poverty-stricken student would find hard to resist. "Do you have a professor who just can't stop talking about President Bush, about the war in Iraq, about the Republican party, or any other ideological issue that has nothing to do with the class subject matter? If you help ... expose the professor, we'll pay you for your work."
For full notes, a tape recording and a copy of all teaching materials, students at the University of California Los Angeles are being offered $100 (£57) - the tape recorder is provided free of charge - by an alumni group.

Lecture notes without a tape recording net $50, and even non-attendance at the class while providing copies of the teaching materials is worth $10.

But the initiative has prompted concerns that the group, the brainchild of a former leader of the college's Republicans, is a witch-hunt. Several targeted professors have complained, figures associated with the group have distanced themselves from the project and the college is studying whether the sale of notes infringes copyright and contravenes regulations.

The Bruin Alumni Association's single registered member is Andrew Jones, a 24-year-old former student who gained some notoriety while at the university for staging an "affirmative action bake sale" at which ethnic minority students were offered discounts on pastries.

His latest project has academics worrying about moves by rightwing groups to counter what they perceive to be a leftist bias at many colleges.

The group's website, uclaprofs.com, lists 31 professors whose classes it considers worthy of scrutiny. The professors teach classes in history, African-American studies, politics, and Chicano studies. Their supposed radicalism is indicated on the site by a rating system of black fists. The organisation denies on the website that it is conducting a vendetta against those with differing political views. "We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behaviour, no matter where it falls on the ideological spectrum."

But in another posting, it is clear just where on the spectrum the group thinks the bias might fall. "One aspect of this radicalisation, outlined here, is an unholy alliance between anti-war professors, radical Muslim students and a pliant administration. Working together, they have made UCLA a major organising centre for opposition to the war on terror."

The Guardian

@ Westy

We may as well laugh while we are free.

@ westy bloke

did you just need the P and magicaly it infilled

@ Blags

Autocomplete is such a giveaway.

The Guardian Friday, 20th January 2006
On Monday, Michael Ignatieff - Harvard human rights guru and former BBC arts presenter - is standing for a seat in the Canadian parliament. Already observers say his ambition is to be prime minister. But can his famed intellect overcome accusations that he is an apologist for Bush's war policies?



"I can't promise I'll do what you ask me to do in every situation"

Erm, Hello!? Mr Intellectual, what do you think a representative democracy entails? You better damn well do what your voters want. You are representing their interests. Not much point being listened to and then your wishes being discarded. "Listen, I'm a politician, I know best. If I say the Wars a good thing, you believe me. Now, run off and do your job and pay the taxes that feed me and enable me to give subsidies to the arms industry."

Representative democracy, puh! Have we ever had it in any country?

Mind you, George Galloway is representing the wishes of the people of Bethnal Green and Bow when they demanded at that public meeting that he go into the Big Brother house and make a complete prat of himself.

More milk please!