Posts Tagged ‘Australia’
Google weighs in on internet filter
Google’s Australian division, has added it’s 2 cents to the debate on the Internet Filter Policy proposed by the Labour Government of Australia to filter all web traffic it’s citizens view and deny access to refused classification or other objectional content.
In it’s blog, Google have openly opposed the Australian Internet Filter, and submitted it’s arguments to the Labour party including:
- The filter would block access to some important content, including some politically controversial content, with Google indicates is vital in democracy.
- It removes choices, claiming that parents will become complacent, under a false sense of security, believing they or their children will be protected from harm on the internet.
- Isn’t effective in protecting children, because the objectional content is often found outside of HTTP websites.
They’ve also stated it will signficantly slow down internet access of large websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google’s own video channel, YouTube.
Google has used Youtube as an example, citing it’s Community Guidelines Policy, and self-regulation, and also said that the government should shift it’s focus to user education to help improve online safety.
We at SearchNews are very opinionated on the matter also, we also believe that the filter is poorly thought out, will put burdens on resources, having a direct impact on internet access pricing, and will have a detremental effect on internet access in Australia.
We beleive there are much better ways to protect children and weed out criminals, and that our tax-payer’s dollars can be better allocated to other programs.
The Proposed Internet Filter Policy will be brought before the senate in coming weeks, however it will require support from the Australian Liberal Party to pass into legislation.
We will be watching with great anticipation and hope the outcome is the Internet Filter Policy being shelved as a technological blunder in the history of the Australian Government.
For related information see the following websites:
Search Engine Privacy
European privacy organisations are again pressuring Search Engines to do more to protect the privacy of their users, as the topic is brought to the fore at The Second Annual European Data Privacy Day.
According to a report from VNU Net, the major search engines have offered to lower their retention times in Europe from three to eighteen months.
Robert Beens, CEO of Dutch Search Engine Company LXQuick has commented that “Using a search engine is sharing your innermost secrets and habits, which should be safe”.
Search Engine News tends to agree with Mr Been’s comments. A lot of valuable information about user behavior is kept by the search engines, giving them an upper hand when it comes to marketing and analytics, but many people aren’t aware that when they search for information in Google or other search engines, that their information is kept in a database as a profile built around their internet habits. That is a lot of trust users are giving to the search engines, which can easily be lost if the search engines abuse their power.
LXQuick has decided to stop recording it’s visitor’s IP Address amid privacy concerns, and all details of it’s users will be deleted within 48 hours. This follows the search engine privacy leader Cuil, which has a policy of not storing logs about it’s users activity, nor storing any cookies that could identify it’s users.
Google has in the past been criticized over the length it stores it’s cookies and the community at large has had concerns over Google’s usage or potential misuse of that information, however when the three major search engines were issued subpoena’s by the US Government for information on it’s users search queries, Google was the only one that fought the subpoena to defend it’s customers information.
Google’s new browser Google Chrome also has increased privacy modes, fondly dubbed “porn mode” by some of the tech community due to it’s ability of wiping any evidence of browser history
Many countries around the globe already have in place very strict privacy laws, such in Australia and the UK, and the European Union is beginning to clamp down on it’s own privacy laws with a major emphasis on protecting personal data, it seems that so far, the search engines have complied with many requests, but one can only wonder just how hard they’ll fight to retain the data that they still have.
Search Engine News brought to you by Search King.