Ken Ross, general manager for MSN search, posted about MSN’s cooperation with the Department of Justice subpoenas, but quite a few commenters disagree with the company’s stance.
Considering the volume of comments MSN Search received on its blog, one can only imagine what Google would have if it didn’t have a policy banning comments from its official blogs.
Ross posted a defense of the scope of data delivered to DOJ from MSN Search:
Over the summer we were subpoenaed by the DOJ regarding a lawsuit. The subpoena requested that we produce data from our search service. We worked hard to scope the request to something that would be consistent with this principle. The applicable parties to the case received this data, and the parties agreed that the information specific to this case would remain confidential.
Ross also stressed privacy was protected, a position MSN considered non-negotiable. He referred to the type of data disclosed to the Feds:
Specifically, we produced a random sample of pages from our index and some aggregated query logs that listed queries and how often they occurred. Absolutely no personal data was involved.
With this data you:
CAN see how frequently some query terms occurred.
CANNOT look up an IP and see what they queried
CANNOT look for users who queried for both “TERM A” and “TERM B”.
Commenters mostly disputed Ross’s contention of privacy protection, calling it a “cop-out” and letting “the genie out of the bottle.” One commenter asked three questions of MSN that would be interesting to see answered: why didn’t Microsoft blog about this six months ago; why blog about it now; and what will Microsoft do in the future to safeguard user privacy.
Others saw the ineffectiveness of Ross’s third point, about DOJ not looking for users who queried both TERM A and TERM B. All DOJ has to do is look for users who did not query both terms and eliminate them from the list.
Ultimately, Google is getting and will receive a lot of positive coverage for forcing DOJ to make this a public issue, just as it has for telling BellSouth what it can do with its request for more money from Google and other Internet players.
The real story will be whether Google can beat the Feds in court. That’s going to take a while to determine.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
