Google sued for other people's intentions?

NEW YORK - A Long Island politician sued Google Inc. on Thursday claiming the search engine leader is profiting from illegal child pornography.

Jeffrey Toback, a member of the Nassau County Legislature, said Google has paid links to Web sites containing pornography involving minors.

“This case is about a multi-billion dollar company that promotes and profits from child pornography,” said the complaint filed in state Supreme Court in Mineola.

A Google spokesman denied the allegations and said the Mountain View, Calif.-based company takes numerous steps to prevent access to child pornography.

“When we find or are made aware of any child pornography, we remove it from our products, including our search engine,” spokesman Steve Langdon said in an e-mail statement to The Associated Press. “We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography.”

Langdon also said Google offers a service called SafeSearch for its search engine “that works to filter out adult content.”

The lawsuit, which calls Google “the largest and most efficient facilitator and distributor of child pornography in th world,” does not name other widely used search engines such as Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) or Microsoft Corp.’s MSN.

Toback said he filed suit because oversight over Google was far beyond the purview of county legislators.

“This is a proactive step to keep children safe,” Toback said in a telephone interview. “We had to go the judicial route.”

The lawsuit does not seek specific monetary damages, but wants Google to prohibit “advertising relating to Web sites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography.”

Source: http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/search/2006/05/04/ny-lawmaker-sues-google-over-child-porn/

I'm sorry guys, but this is stupid, Google being sued because the Search Engine delivers? I don't mind Google banning child porn wherever it may be possible (SafeSearch and normal search algorithm etc) but being sued because someone that is NOT FROM THE GOOGLE COMPANY searched for child porn? And about the Google search thing, when searching for a website, it sometimes becomes automatically submitted to Google, also I don't think Google would risk the billion dollar company over this.

I want to hear your views on this.

EDIT: Sorry if I onfused some of you, I put "banned" instead of "sued". 

The guy wants a fast buck, that or he just searched for CP and did this to make people forget about it, bet if he wins (LOL if he dose) he would become rich and everybody might forget, loses then we will go to jail for it.

This is in the same vein as religious nuts, retarded cults (sup scientology) or wildly homophobic people trying to get their relative things banned from the internet.

Granted, child porn is illegal, and it should be illegal, but what. I and I'm sure millions of others would rather google kept their current automated spidering system to index the web, instead of what, hiring a person to have to check every single thing google indexes just to make sure it has no CP in it before it can be added to the index?

Google even has things to prevent it or measures for people to use to report it. What is this guy even complainging about?

Publicity stunt.

This is in the same vein as religious nuts, retarded cults (sup scientology) or wildly homophobic people trying to get their relative things banned from the internet.

Granted, child porn is illegal, and it should be illegal, but what. I and I'm sure millions of others would rather google kept their current automated spidering system to index the web, instead of what, hiring a person to have to check every single thing google indexes just to make sure it has no CP in it before it can be added to the index?

Google even has things to prevent it or measures for people to use to report it. What is this guy even complainging about?

Publicity stunt.

Exactly what I thought, this "politician" can't expect a worldwide search engine to check EVERY page before adding to Google search. This annoyed me when I saw it because they expect them to do the vitually impossible when Google already has safety feature to TRY and avoid Child porn to be searched for on the internet.

From what I understand of the article, it is talking about paid links, not the search engine itself. I.E. Google advertisements. Also, the person is not asking for money, he's just asking google to filter their paid advertisements (which they probably should do to begin with). It probably is a publicity stunt, but I don't see this as a bad thing. It's approximately equivalent to a newspaper accepting money to advertise child porn.

I agree, but have you guys ever looked at some of the ads at the top? Their is always alot. And their all done by Google. All the ads come from somewhere. Someone has to look at the places and see if they have cp. A company would not even make the mistake of advertising cp on purpose. What this guy could have seen (publicity stunt or not) is a mislabeled link or a bug in the system (very doubtful). Lots of people try to target big name industries for money.

One day, if this continues, the world will be so wound up that if somebody trys to be polite, they could wind up in jail. Why? They would be sued for "rape" "harassment" and/or "assault". Why? For the "victim" to get a little extra cash. I have thought of doing something like this (slam the brakes on a guy hugging my bumper). Why? We want the money. We have corrupted ourselves, nothing is the same. The world sucks. THE END

this isn't for money though.

The lawsuit does not seek specific monetary damages, but wants Google to prohibit “advertising relating to Web sites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography."

Sorry, I misread, but my post still stands

this isn't for money though.

The lawsuit does not seek specific monetary damages, but wants Google to prohibit “advertising relating to Web sites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography."

But you have to understand, thousands of sites have Google ads put on the sites every week! Google cannot be expected to look at every website that is using the ads, yes they may find one or two sites and prohibit ads or stop accounts, but they can't be sued for something that is improbable and by the impossible.

Granted, child porn is illegal, and it should be illegal

Pft~ Says you. What's your definition of a 'child'..?


As for the rest:

Concerning user-searches; no search engine should be held responsible for other peoples actions. 1) They don't make the sites and 2) They don't force people to search for "Kiddy porn".

Paid advertisements on the other hand: :\ Really, they're accepting cash from businesses to advertise a product, they would have ready access to what material the business is trying to advertise and the only reason why they wouldn't check every ad is pure greed. 

My personal view of course is all thumbs up, and I know first hand that certain  cp sites are indeed blocked by google (mainly "gray modeling") and can be a bitch to find. If they have no legal obligation to block these sites, why would they do it unless they're moral-fags?

this isn't for money though.

The lawsuit does not seek specific monetary damages, but wants Google to prohibit “advertising relating to Web sites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography."

But you have to understand, thousands of sites have Google ads put on the sites every week! Google cannot be expected to look at every website that is using the ads, yes they may find one or two sites and prohibit ads or stop accounts, but they can't be sued for something that is improbable and by the impossible.

You're acting like it's completely impossible for google to filter their advertisements. To get your site in google advertisements, you have to submit some sort of applicatiton and you have to pay. Google doesn't just randomly pick up websites and advertise them. The reason The Fart Button ad appears on RMRK is because they pay Google for that advertisement. Why do you think it is so impossible for google to look at the sites which apply for advertising in order to determine whether ther is child porn on that site?

They aren't trying to prohibit Google Ads from being on CP sites, they're trying to prohibit CP sites from being on Google Ads

That's the statement I got. I am PRETTY sure that they would look at the people who want to show ads with google. For example, are you going to buy a TV off the street or in a store? Thats the idea we should be seeing here.

One day, if this continues, the world will be so wound up that if somebody trys to be polite, they could wind up in jail. Why? They would be sued for "rape" "harassment" and/or "assault". Why? For the "victim" to get a little extra cash. I have thought of doing something like this (slam the brakes on a guy hugging my bumper). Why? We want the money. We have corrupted ourselves, nothing is the same. The world sucks. THE END

Yeah, the world sucks- maybe you should leave it.
Seriously, are you 12? This is a very emo and wannabe philosophical perspective- "THE WORLD IS A HORRIBLE PLACE PEOPLE ARE GREEDY AND WANT TO DO NOTHING BUT ADVANCE THEMSELVES FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH DESIRES!"
I could go on, but as Saladin said, philosophy's the "realm of Athenian boylovers" and blargh to that.

Google said in a trial against Geico, "Google is the publisher". The suer's statement may hold up against an advertisers, but it will not apply to google. This crap is pure misinterpretation of the law.

Perhaps Google's checking on paid adverts is based on an automated system that filters out content automatically?

This reminds me of a situation that occurred in 1999 when Disney was caught using child labor in the docks of Los Angeles to manufacture toys for McDonald's kids meals. Both sides blamed the vendor, and because of their relatively popular and positive reception within the US, no one remembers nor cares. Google, on the other hand, has been met with a lot of resistance, and anything to make them look bad, you know.

All search engines can be used in a way to find what ever it is your after, thats what makes them search engines...

If you turn off the safe filter then your bound to come across some thing that will upset you, or will be border line illeagle or unsafe...

As for Adverts I remember a few months back on Goggle I came across an Advert linking to a site that sold DVD footage of a Nude Child Pageant in Russia... and over there it's legal.... So the site was not taken down and the advert remained up...

There are 100's of places to report these sites to, I don't see why the person who took google to court just didn't report the sites...

Or if Google is so good for finding this filth why don't the Cops get on it and pay google to make them a search engine that just crawls for that type of stuff to crack down on it !!

I think if its easy to find it's easy to stop !!!

So how did the guy know about child porn in google ?
Did he searched for it himself ?   

I found it once by accident in google, I had the filter turned off and put in Gauge Teen Model... I mean she is 18... She came up but so did a load of Pre-teen model sites... I think google may have stopped that now though.

Actually just tried and still some images look rather boarder line !!... MET Art it says under the images... What the hecks that ?... I aint clicking them....LOL

Every repost is a repost is a repost...is a repost.


I've posted that here before.