Evidence from Mountain View: Google is in favor of censorship and against human rights
Slowly even the Google stock holders are beginning to realize that the “cool” company has quite a few things to catch up on regarding data protection and privacy, and that Google has some enormous deficits in its attitude toward censorship and human rights. At the upcoming stockholders meeting on the 8th of May these topics are on the agenda. The “Googlers” will most probably not deal with these questions for a long period of time and will push the topics aside as fast as possible – as the agenda proves. I recommend that those who still think Google is a “good company, which does no evil” should read the “2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders Notice of the Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement”.
The New Yorker Office of the Comptroller of New York City and the monastery “St. Scholastica” have proposed, that Google should oppose censorship, support the right for freedom of opinion and press, and should no longer store user data.
Here are the claims in detail:
1) Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
2) The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
3) The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
4) Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
5) Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
6) The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.
And here is the answer/recommendation by the Google Directors:
Recommendation: Our board of directors recommends a vote AGAINST the stockholder proposal.
and from WebGuild.org:
Google Assists Indian Police Arrest Student
Google provided Indian police with information that led to the arrest of 22 year IT professional, Rahul Vaid, on Friday (May 16, 2008).
Vaid posted derogatory content about Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a orkut community named — “I hate Sonia Gandhi”. The messages were circulated through an email address – [email protected], which is operated by Google's Gmail.
The investigation began in December 2007 when the cyber crime cell of Pune police communicated with the Google seeking details about the identity of the person who formed the forum and circulated the obscene content.
On Friday evening a team of Indian police arrived at the home of Rakul Vaid in Gurgaon city, Haryana. He was arrested and flown to Pune where he was arrigned on Saturday. Vaid was charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act because he created a profile and then posted content in vulgar language about Sonia Gandhi in the community. If proved guilty, Vaid could be imprisoned for up to five years and may have to pay a fine up to Rs. 100,000.
