July 3, 2006 | In Law, Technology |
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee is currently investigating the idea of forcing search engines and other internet companies to maintain data about users for at least one year.
In theory, the information collected would be used solely to identify online sexual predators, but once the government has access to things like search data it is sure to go much farther than that.
Even aside from the blatant privacy concerns surrounding this sort of legislation, the government would expect search engines to put up massive amounts of storage space, the costs of which could run into the tens of millions of dollars and put a big dent in the industry’s profits.
Overall, even looking into this type of legislation will likely be seen as a major attack on internet freedom, further reducing the U.S. Government’s popularity among internet users and corporations alike.
The last time a government entity (the Department of Justice) tried something like this they ended up on the losing end of a court battle with Google. If American authorities are wise, they’ll avoid a lot of trouble this time round by avoiding this issue and minding their own business.
