All sorts of interesting news today...Google sued for promoting child porn

[adina]

"This case is about a multibillion dollar company that promotes and profits from child pornography," said the complaint filed in state Supreme Court in Mineola, N.Y.


I find it hard to believe that Google "promotes" child porn. Here's the link...or you could google it...

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/50360.html

[adina]

A Nassau County legislator filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming Google Inc. generates "billions of dollars from the pornography trade and illicit profiteers."

The lawsuit by four-term legislator Jeffrey Toback (D-Oceanside) calls the Internet search engine the world's largest distributor of child pornography, claiming that child porn is part of the company's business model. Google "continues to put its economic gains ahead of the interests and well-being of America's children," the lawsuit, filed in Nassau State Supreme Court alleges.

Here's more.
http://www.rawstory.com/comments/15138.html

Obviously, I am against child porn. But to say that it is part of Google's business model? Seems a little far fetched to me.

[walterick]

I'll have to read those links later. This has been bubbling for awhile though, hasn't it? I am not too familiar with Google's business model, but they always seemed like an exemplary corporation in the way corporations go. I doubt there's any merit to these accusations. But just in case...

Time to start shorting GOOG! ;)
(tried to insert a stock chart of GOOG here I guess they won't let me damn)

[Asylum Steve]

I too, know little about the Google business model or their inner workings, but enough to know they made their money cataloging the internet and capitalizing on folks browsing the web and using their search engine.

They have also certainly profited from people trafficking the results of those searches.

So, to think they don't make a ton o' money (indirectly) from all the porn video and photo web sites on the web would be naive.

As they are not in the business of policing the interent (not sure they could do that even if they wanted to), to think that illegal child porn sites don't play some part in this, IMO, would also be naive...

Still, that's a far cry from saying (and proving) that they "promote" child porn. To me, that's sort of like blaming the people that put up road signs for the bad neighborhoods they sometimes lead to...

And BTW, I'm sure Yahoo (and many other search engines) get a piece of that money, too...

[adina]

It's interesting that this lawsuit only names google, not yahoo or msn. Because, I would think, that the same thoughts could be applied.

Wasn't google the only search engine that said no they wouldn't turn over their records to help fight terrorism? I guess that could be taken two ways, they either didn't turn them over because they are secretly running a porn ring, or they are now being targeted because they didn't turn them over.

I'm in a conspirecy mood....

[walterick]

Adina, I was remembering the same thing. But I thought they were the only company not to turn over information in a child-pornography case. Interesting that the companys who did cooperate are not named in the lawsuit.

Ah, politics.

Google is building a new office here in Phoenix soon. Couple that with the fact that Chandler, AZ is one of the first US cities to have blanket wireless internet throughout the entire city, and I think we have the makings of a tech city here.

If, Google doesn't get slapped too hard.