State Attorneys General to Google: Censor or Be Censored

If you have
to ask Google how to rob a house or become a drug dealer, you
probably aren’t going to make a terribly superb robber or drug
dealer. In other words: Search engine inquiries into how to start a
life of crime are probably harmless. But that’s not really the
point—were eHow and Ask.com the premier way of learning
the drug trade, it still wouldn’t make it right for the government
to intervene. The government is intervening, however, with

state attorney generals (AGs) pressuring Google
to obscure sites that promote illegal
activities or sell “dangerous” or illegal materials. 

In a December 2013
letter, published by The Washington Post this week,
attorneys general from 23 states and Puerto Rico “expressed
concerns” about “Google’s monetization of dangerous and illegal
content,” “the promotion of illegal and prescription free drugs,”
and general intellectual property violations on the Internet. The
gang proposed a meeting in Denver in January, to which Google
agreed.

A subsequent letter from the AGs, sent in February, calls the
meeting a “valuable first step” but stresses that “much work
remains to be done.” Summarizing requests made at the meeting, the
AGs ask Google to enhance content screening systems and place
increased “human scrutiny” on content uploaded to YouTube and
Google Drive; to delist sites that sell illegal drugs or any other
illegal materials, and prevent these sites from using paid search
or ads; and to provide “swift responses” to law enforcement
officials about this content. 

“What can Google do to encourage a culture worthy of its ‘Don’t
be evil’ motto?” they ask. Oh, I don’t know, perhaps not censor
the Internet based on the whims of a group of paternalistic
prosecutors or use its massive reach to be a spy for the
state?

Google, to its credit, wanted no part of the AGs’ evil schemes.
The company explained that it already has initiatives in place to
identify and address copyright violations or prohibited content,
and it has (since 2010) barred illegal pharmacies from placing paid
ads via Google.

It also, at the request of the AGs, recently removed more than
1,200 phrases from its auto-complete predictions, such as “how to
become a drug dealer,” “how to get away with robbing a house,” and
“how to buy slaves” (note that these search terms are still
perfectly possible, you’ll just have to type the whole phrase
yourself). Additionally, it added hundreds of search terms (such as
“buy foreign women”) to a list of things that will not return ads
on YouTube and AdWord.

However, Google patiently explained to the AGs, it does not own
or run everything on the Internet nor have a desire to be censor in
chief (emphasis mine): 

In contrast to our hosted platforms, our search index reflects
existing content on the web, and the sites linked in Google search
results are created and controlled by those sites’ webmasters, not
Google. Given the First Amendment and free-expression issues at
play, search is the least restrictive of our services
… It is our firm belief that Google should not be
the arbiter of what is and is not legal on the web.

Hell yeah. And Google also rejected (as it has many times
before) the idea that it should remove entire sites from search
results for copyright violations. Whole-site removal “sends the
wrong message internationally, by favoring over-inclusive private
censorship over the rule of law,” it said. “This would jeopardize
free speech principles and the free flow of information online
globally and in contexts far removed from copyright.” 

The state AGs aren’t satisfied, of course. If Google won’t fall
in line, they’ve threatened to pursue legal action,
according to The Washington Post. Jim Hood,
Mississippi AG and the one leading this crusade, explained to the
Post that they were merely “trying to make (Google) do
right.”