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Google Sued for Allegedly Profiting From Child Porn 510

Posted by Zonk from the this-is-what-happens-when-you're-the-biggest-target dept.
skinfaxi writes "Filed in New York, Jeffrey Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links." From the article: "The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial. It also accuses Google of violating federal statutes relating to child pornography and calls for the court to order that Google cease "advertising, promoting, or distributing" child pornography through its site or otherwise providing any links to such content."
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Google Sued for Allegedly Profiting From Child Porn More

Google Sued for Allegedly Profiting From Child Porn

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  • Won't *somebody* think of the children??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:37PM (#15270911)

    From TFA:
    "Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
    Wow...Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz managed to fit human rights in China, child pornography, and availabilty of porn to children in one sentence. A veritable trifecta of outrage.

    From the above quote, you might get the idea that Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz earn a large percentage of their income from spurious lawsuits based upon righteous indignation. A quick glance at their litigation history would seem to bear out this assumption.

    Again, from TFA:
    Other recent lawsuits filed by the firm have sought at least $10 million for alleged sex discrimination against Atlantic City, N.J., casino cocktail waitresses and $600 million from the maker of an ephedra-based dietary supplement claimed to cause the death of a Baltimore Orioles pitcher.
    Now, I'm against child porn as much as the next guy (or most of them, anyway), but this is looking a lot like a fishing expedition.

    Just one more quote from TFA:
    Toback, the politician backing the action, describes himself in his biography on Nassau County's Web site as a "quality of life guy" who has focused on legislation promoting open space and recreational areas. He has also co-sponsored a law designed to protect teenagers from tanning beds and has planned this year to pursue a ban of toy guns in the area.

    Oh, that's right....it's an election year.

  • So you were searching for child porn? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 666penvzila ( 750427 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:37PM (#15270918)
    The ads typically reflect the sites that show up in your search.

  • Non-starter (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Billosaur ( 927319 ) * <wgrotherNO@SPAMoptonline.net> on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:37PM (#15270926) Journal

    "Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."

    The difference being that China is a Communist state, while the United States is a Republic. In China, the government makes and breaks the rules at will, so when they tell Google "ban searches for 'X' or else," Google complies. In the US, legislation is required to ban something and it has to meet the "rigorous" standards of law. See below.

    A Google representative said Friday that the company prohibits child pornography in its products and removes all such content whenever the company finds or is made aware of it. "We also report it to the appropriate law enforcement officials and fully cooperate with the law enforcement community to combat child pornography," spokesman Steve Langdon said in an e-mail interview.

    Langdon pointed to the content policy for Google's AdWords sponsored links service, which broadly prohibits "promotion of child pornography or other non-consensual material." Langdon also noted that Google offers a filtering tool called SafeSearch that aims to block offensive content in search results.

    The availability of such tools could mean that the suit may not go far. Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects providers and users of an "interactive computer service" from liability if it can be shown that they took good faith to restrict access to obscene material. It also provides that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

    So, in the end, while their cause is just and I think all of us can agree that child pornography is an abomination, the fact is that laws have been passed stating the circumstances required for a company to avoid being charged with a crime for promoting child pornography, and Google is complying. Whether you agree with how the law is worded is a separate issue. This is a lot of wasted time and effort. Hopefully this lawsuit will be struck down and the anti-child-porn people can get back to helping children who are victims of this and hunting down the assholes who make it available and do these despicable things.

    • Re:Non-starter (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:45PM (#15271004) Homepage Journal
      The difference being that China is a Communist state, while the United States is a Republic.
      I must have missed the memo about those being mutually exclusive. Someone tell us, what does the R in PRC stand for again? Is it the same as the one in USSR?

      • Re:Non-starter (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:48PM (#15271046)

        Well, just because a country calls itself a republic doesn't mean that it is...after all, the United States calls itself a democracy...

        • Re:Non-starter (Score:3, Informative)

          by Rakshasa Taisab ( 244699 )
          Not a republic, are you perhaps suggesting Bush has taken on the title of King Bush?

          But since I can make a guess at what you really meant; It seems to me the United States likes to call itself a democracy, while technically true it would be more accurate imo to call it a federal republic with a efficiently two-party system. Not something I'd consider a 'democracy'.

        • Re:Non-starter (Score:4, Insightful)

          by rainman_bc ( 735332 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @01:47PM (#15271607)
          .after all, the United States calls itself a democracy...

          Where 60.7% voted in 2004, and 50% of those elect a president. 30% of your population picks your leader.

          And it's always a two party race. Do I vote far to the right, or right of center? No sense in voting center or a little left leaning, because they don't stand a chance.

          Make no mistake, the US is a plutocracy now, more than a democracy. It's about who donates to an election campaign, not just the voters now.
      • The "R" in PRC is about as meaningful as the second "D" in the old DDR ("Deutsche Demokratische Republik").

        • Re:Non-starter (Score:3, Insightful)

          by DragonWriter ( 970822 )
          A republic is simply a government order whose head of state is not a monarch; the PRC is certainly a "Republic". Now its not a "Democratic Republic" like, e.g., the US. But you don't have to be at all democratic to be a Republic.

    • Re:Non-starter (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 )
      The cause isn't just, it's made for personal gain, using "child porn" as the excuse and serves to put future, legitimate concerns of this nature in contempt. Warning bells should come as soon as it was said google made "billions of dollars" off this specific criminal enterprise - propaganda and exaggeration is perhaps tools for the con artist here.

    • Re:Non-starter (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mcc ( 14761 )
      The difference being that China is a Communist state, while the United States is a Republic.

      They're working on that.

  • Unsurprisingly, money is involved (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkstar949 ( 697933 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:40PM (#15270952)
    Unsurprisingly this line appears in the article:

    The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial.

    However, there is no mention of who would be getting the money. So this makes me more inclined to think that it is not "for the children" but rather "for the money".

  • Another One (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FiveDollarYoBet ( 956765 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:41PM (#15270962)
    Just another politician trying to get their name in the news to score some extra votes.

    Do you really want the gov't to decide what results Google or any of the other engines can return?

    insert sig here

    • Re:Another One (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trigun ( 685027 ) <<xc.hta.eripmelive> <ta> <live>> on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:44PM (#15270992)
      Why don't they go after the purveyors of said pornography?

      Better yet, why doesn't every country get together and decide what a child is? Or how about every U.S. state?
      • Reminds me of this:

        ANAKIN: We need a system where the politicians sit down and
        discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interests of
        all the people, and then do it.

        PADMÉ: That is exactly what we do. The trouble is that
        people don't always agree. In fact, they hardly ever do.

        ANAKIN: Then they should be made to.

      • Re:Another One (Score:3, Insightful)

        by westlake ( 615356 )
        Better yet, why doesn't every country get together and decide what a child is? Or how about every U.S. state?

        Let's be honest here, shall we?

        When the talk is about child pornography, the discussion is almost certain to focus on the sexually immature child, those age twelve and under. Including those still in infancy.

        Why don't they go after the purveyors of said pornography?

        They can and they do. But going after the distributer sometimes means you bag the lot.

  • Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wackysootroom ( 243310 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:41PM (#15270966) Homepage
    Does anyone else find it ironic that this law firm exploits our natural instinct to protect children to try to make a money grab from Google? So who's exploiting who here? It seems like google does all it can to try to remove and filter out any type of child porn here, so how can they be liable?

    • Re:Ironic (Score:3, Insightful)

      by linvir ( 970218 )
      As well as the usual, I think if I were from New York I wouldn't be too happy about the idea of some law firm simply deciding that I, as a member of the public, had had emotional distress inflicted upon me.

  • Election fodder... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stick_Fig ( 740331 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:42PM (#15270970) Homepage
    ...this won't go anywhere, but at least Jeffrey Toback will be able to say:

    "My name is Jeffrey Toback, and I care about your children. Vote for me this November."

  • Talk about a knee jerk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by minusthink ( 218231 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:44PM (#15270990)
    "Toback, self-described as "not the most computer-literate guy," said he learned of the filter three days ago. He said he didn't know if the computers in his home have commercial filtering software that blocks pornography and other material unsuitable for children.

    Toback said a lawsuit was his only alternative because Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., is beyond the legislature's control. Toback, a father of three children, ages 15, 13 and 9, filed the lawsuit as a private citizen with no county funds."

    He didn't even investigate if there was a filter in google already.
    He didn't investigate his own computer even *having* filtering software.
    He didn't investigate using filtering software.
    He didn't think that he might, i don't know, watch where his kids go on the web.

    Go go gadget out sourced parenting.

    (From: http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzgoog0505,0,26 01653.story?coll=ny-top-headlines [newsday.com])

  • What is Google doing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digidave ( 259925 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:45PM (#15271003)
    The real question is whether or not Google is knowingly allowing ads for sites with child pornography. Obviously if they knew about these sites they should have been removed.

    I somehow doubt any company would do that since it is a sure way to get in trouble and lose lots of customers. I imagine a few ads may have slipped under the Google radar that looks for this sort of abuse, but if Google has a system in place where people can notify them of these ads and if they take immediate action to remove the ads, then I don't see them as being 'evil'.

  • Do it for the children! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Old Man Kensey ( 5209 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:45PM (#15271016) Homepage
    I wish these people would quit trying to protect everyone else's children and stick to worrying about their own.
    • Obviously you should 'protect' your own kids. But if a company is knowingly and willingly profiting from child porn, that needs to be stopped as well.

      Key word "if". I have no idea about the merits of this case. But we can't, as a society, concern ourselves with only that which happens within the 4 walls of our individual houses. Sometimes a wider action is needed.

  • Load of rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by malsdavis ( 542216 ) * on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:46PM (#15271019)
    Yea right Billions.

    So Google has made more from Child Porn alone than it's actual net yearly income?

    What rubbish.

    • Re:Load of rubbish (Score:3, Informative)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      So Google has made more from Child Porn alone than it's actual net yearly income?

      Someone needs a crash course on income vs. revenue. Google's *revenue* is in the $2.25 billion range for a single quarter of a year. If they spent $1.65 billion per quarter in expenses, then their income would be around $600 million. The plaintiff (or whatever he is) is claiming that substantial amounts of *revenue* is coming from child porn.

      Source: here [macworld.com]

  • Sponsored Links (Score:5, Funny)

    by BigDumbAnimal ( 532071 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:46PM (#15271023)
    Kiddie porn?
    Whatever you're looking for
    you can get it on eBay.
    www.eBay.com

  • Let's Be More Like China (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Trick ( 3648 )

    "Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."

    Yeah. Let's use China as a role model. I know they're just trying to get in a cheap shot at Google, but the implication that we should somehow control companies the same way China do

  • If google is profiting, then aren't the telcos ALSO profiting from this? I mean, after all we've heard about Google "making money on the backs of the telco's networks", shouldn't the telcos be the real profiteers?

    Can't have it both ways.

  • interesting to note (Score:5, Insightful)

    by to_kallon ( 778547 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:49PM (#15271056)
    "Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."

    spurious and pointless as this lawsuit may be, i find it interesting that in the same sentence he faults google for blocking search terms and not blocking search terms. no, i'm not advocating child pornography or think that it shouldn't be blocked, i'm just saying people should really pick an agenda and stick with it. oh, but wait, this is america where politicians can say three things and do a fourth.
  • "Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."

    Translation: Hey they put a line of code in that says =~ s/'democracy'//ig but they won't spend a X billion dollars to create an image filtering process that can accurately determine
  • I googled this "Jeffrey Toback" guy, and he's apparently a nobody.
  • that's what I do.
  • As a free market promoter and anarcho-capitalist, child porn is one grey area that I don't have a good answer to. Slashdot usually has good opinions from either side of the statism coin, and this is one place that I don't doubt that both sides of the pro/anti-government debate can offer some real insight to.

    I believe that our governments haven't shown any ability to fix anything they want to -- the unintended consequences of every piece of regulation seem to create preferential treatment for some elite group rather than actually solve any problems, protect those meant to be protected or reduce "crime" as they define it. Drug wars, porn wars, family value wars, oil wars, a War on Everything seems to just make Everything worse.

    I think child porn is disgusting, but the victims in this case have never seemed to be helped by the law. Lawsuits by the government that are titled "The People v. Google" seem to never help The People, harm Google, and in the end the lawyers win and the government wins a case that helps it grow in power without having to be any more accountable to those paying the bills in the end.

    I'm not a fan of regular porn, either, but I don't really see how anyone can stop something that has an obvious market (including child porn or the odd varieties of porn). As a believer in the Bible, I truly believe that the best way to fix society is one relationship at a time. I've helped a few friends overcome their porn issues as best as I can, by offering my time and love and helping them become accountable to someone (voluntarily). I don't think we can eradicate porn of any kind through the law, and I also believe in people's inherent right to view porn in the privacy of their homes. Is the criminal the person looking at porn, the person making it, or the person who connects the two together? I would have to say that the person who is violated would be the kid, and the perp would be the person making it. Wouldn't it be wiser to go after the real criminal?

    Just because there is a black market for something doesn't mean that the person who consumes the black market product is the problem. You can't fix the drug problem by jailing non-violent drug users. You can't fix the problem by jailing non-violent drug dealers. You can only create a fair justice system by prosecuting and jailing people who committed real acts of violence regardless of the reason -- shoot someone (drug war, aggression, whatever) and you've violated someone. Run someone over with your car (drunk, aggression, whatever) and you've violated someone. The base reasoning that "it was over drugs" or "it was because of alcohol" is not a just reason -- it is the violation of the person that was the criminal act, not the base reason behind the violation.

    I think the enter War on Child Porn doesn't protect the children, but it does seem to give government more and more power over our lives. If we are to criminalize an act, it should be against the perp of the act and on behalf of a real victim. "John Doe (minor) versus Crazy McCracken (perp)" is the only lawsuit I ever want to see. The People versus lawsuits should be thrown out, and we need to return tort laws to finding a real victim and a real perp.

    • Re:Child Porn and the (shudder) Free Market? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sfjoe ( 470510 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @01:18PM (#15271359)
      As a free market promoter and anarcho-capitalist, child porn is one grey area that I don't have a good answer to.

      I like to look at porn and do so fairly regularly. I mostly download Usenet porn and have for ~10 years or so. In all that time, I have never once seen child porn. Although I don't go looking for it, I would expect at least once to have accidentally stumbled upon some. It never happened. All this makes me wonder if the hysteria around child porn is actually just people pandering to parent's fears in order to advance their own agenda. It begs the question: is all this mindless panic in proportion to the severity of the problem?
    • The people viewing it are creating the demand for it, thus being inextricably linked to the cycle.

      Replace your argument about "child porn" with the word "snuff films." Yes, the original perp would be jailed for murder and no additional laws would have to be created there.

      But would the audience be less accountable than anybody else aiding and abbetting murder? Would they be an accomplice, just like a mafioso who orders hits against people, but never does the actual crime?

      I'm not talking about people who ca
      • So now, according to you, merely seeing a snuff film, or other illegal content, would be a crime? I aggree that if the person bought the video, they would be culpable, but just seeing it?

        What else? If I watch videos of illegal street racing on Google Videos am I responsible for the racer's actions? No. I'm merely witnessing a crime. If I were to purchase a video of the race at a car show I'm now actively supporting the actions of the people who made the video, and potentially the people who starred in it.

        The same thing goes for any "taboo" or illegal content. The idea that someone can be prosecuted for witnessing a crime is preposterous. The fact that we do prosecute these people (and according to the news and your local sex offender database, it happens a little too often for my comfort) is just horrendous. The idea is now the same as if I were to witness a murder, and be offended, I'd be fine, but if I were to watch a video tape of the murder to get my jollies I'm now a criminal. We can't throw people in jail because of what goes on inside their heads. If they act out any of these thoughts in real life, or in any other way support a crime, they're guilty, but as long as it stays in their head, they should be innocent.

    • the unintended consequences of every piece of regulation seem to create preferential treatment for some elite group rather than actually solve any problems,

      What do you mean "unintended"?

  • Billions? Who's the profiteering scumbag here? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:58PM (#15271156)
    Toback claims Google has made billions by allowing child porn and 'other obscene content' providers to use sponsored links."

    Google's 2004 revenue was $3.19b
    Quarterly revenue by late 2005 was up to about $1.5b

    So, at a rough estimate, Google's total lifetime revenue as a company is in the ~$10b range.

    To have made "billions" in child porn related sponsored links, even if we assume all of Google's revenue is from sponsored links, we'd be assuming 1/4th of all sponsored links Google has ever served were child porn? Assume 50% of their revenue is sponsored links and that jumps to a full 50% of all sponsored links Google has ever served are child porn.

    Wow. The internet is a sick place. At least 25% of Google's entire business model is purely about child porn? They're evil!

    Or, alternatively, the "billions" claim is completely made up by someone who saw a company with an apparently huge revenue stream and figured he could either:

    a) Get rich by blowing a minor issue out of all proportion and then suing for a chunk of that revenue stream for himself.

    b) Make a name for himself as the protector of all the little children, taking on the giants, and wouldn't you really like to vote for him for D.A. next year? After all, he cares about the children. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, PEOPLE!

    Given I've not seen a single sponsored link for child porn via Google amongst the dozens of How To Make Money On EBay, How To Get Gold In WoW and various home business ads, I'm guessing a full quarter to a half of their business model is not built on child porn. So I'm going to go with self aggrandizing shyster as my guess.

  • this is dumb... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoctorDyna ( 828525 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:59PM (#15271164)
    While everybody is so enthralled with suing google over being able to access stuff, why don't they start suing domain registrars for allowing websites with questionable content to register domains.

    While they are at it, let's sue the ISP on the other end of the server the content sits on for allowing the data to pass through it.

    Let's also sue the company(ies) that made the routers too, they don't filter child porn.

    Let's just make a list of all the companies that participated in the delivery of the content, from the companies that developped the components inside the servers the people that supplied the silicon, the companies that developped the teflon insulation in the cabling, the copper miners for making cable that could be used to transmit child porn...the list goes on and on for people that, by this same ruleset could be held accountable.

    Fucktards, suing google is assinine. All they do is provide a service for people to search what is on the internet. They profit from EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET. You can't sue them because of what the internet contains. Send the people who create child porn to jail.

    This whole issue is simply passing the buck. They realise it's hard to keep porn producers in check, so they sue sue sue big dollar Google to try and win a company that will help them fight their battle? It's very plain to me that most people that hold a political office of some kind have no fucking idea how the internet or computers really work, and insist on sensationalizing things like this that make grandma and grampa think they give a fuck, but the people who actually use the internet always see right the hell through it.

  • How can this guy file suit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by usurper_ii ( 306966 ) <<eyes0nly> <at> <quest4.org>> on Friday May 05, 2006 @12:59PM (#15271173) Homepage
    If I know of a Constitutional violation that has happened or is happening, but it didn't actually happen to me, 99% of the time, the suit is thrown out of court. That is why it is incredibly difficult to win on a Constitutional argument, no matter how valid the violation happens to be. But this one little person can just up and sue Google on what looks like, if the charges or true, that an offical agency of the federal government should be prosecuting.

    Not that I'm shocked to find a double standard with our judicial system, but it looks like to me that this should be thrown out unless the guy can show proof that he was harmed, somehow.

  • The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public

    So, there's someone at Google saying "Muahahha, by my non action, child porn will soon flood the world! MUAHAHA!"

    Seriously, is it even remotely possible that this is intentional negligence?

  • More offtopic ranting about tagging (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heinousjay ( 683506 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @01:12PM (#15271305) Journal
    I see the 'fud' tag showing up on a lot of stuff. I would like to let the intrepid tagger know that the word does not mean 'I don't like this article.' I know that's hard to understand. It's kind of the same as the fact that the 'Troll' moderation does not mean 'I don't agree.' As such, I don't expect this lesson to stick.

    Please mod me down.
  • Fake news in an other dimension:

    "Kleenex Sued for Allegedly Profiting From (Child) Porn!"

    The suit accuses Kleenex® that the consumation of porn is made more handy by Kleenex®
    Bla bla bla bla....

  • His wife caught him "doing some research", and now he has to cover his butt by spending thousands of dollars on a frivolous lawsuit.

  • bla (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @01:36PM (#15271512) Homepage Journal
    I'm pretty sure that Google faces bogus lawsuits like this every other month. The US justice system is a big, fat, ugly "get-rich-quick" scheme for a lucky few, so it isn't much of a surprise that many are trying.

    Just another idiot who - my personal belief - should be shot as a service to mankind.

  • Public distress? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @01:37PM (#15271516) Journal
    The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public

    Well I access Google all the time, even for pr0n (especially for pr0n). Since this is the case, will get $100,000 for my distress about having child porn go across my screen?

    I am pretty sure Google allows automated inclusion of a link from a website, but they try and scan the MILLIONS of sites to filter out the bad ones. I doubt Google wants to ruin their business for a sick minority who enjoy watching naked children. This guy is just trying to sue so he can make a buck.

  • this is great (Score:4, Funny)

    by penguin-collective ( 932038 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @02:16PM (#15271878)
    "The suit, which claims Google acted negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the public, requests monetary damages to be determined at trial.

    That seems to fit the behavior of the current administration excatly--negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress; can we get some monetary damages from them?

    Several trillion dollars might cover at least cover two of their big disasters that come to mind immediately: Iraq and debt, although there are many other items we could add.

  • Google is a law enforcement tool (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @02:20PM (#15271902)
    really. How the hell does Jeffrey Toback think that the authorities find the child porn in order to track down the people producing it? If it is easy to find through google, then it is easy for the police to find and stop. Sue the police if nothing is being done about it.

  • well (Score:3, Funny)

    by McGiraf ( 196030 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @02:39PM (#15272053)
    "to block child pornography from reaching children."

    i don't think that children are the audience for this.

  • WTF?! Are you KIDDING me? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday May 05, 2006 @02:42PM (#15272077) Journal
    I'm no Google activist by any means, but if there's one impression that google has given me is that they're so anti-child-porn as any search engine could ever get!

    Even with SafeSearch Off (with their picture search facility) you can't find a singe image like that (not that I'm searching - mind you), but my experience with searching for literally anything - I've yet to come across something even remotely related to child-pron with this search facility, that I have to give them.

    I'm old enough to remember the days of the Altavista search engine - and that one where relatively uncensored - so you'd stumble across the odd weird-off image now and then, but google? Nah! These people specialize in keeping such images off the engine.

    However - that said - I also think that google strives to be the ultimate search engine, and therefor will have some issues on censoring just about anything. Even with thousands of people working for them - it would be literally impossible to control EVERYTHING streaming trough the net, so if anything slips by - it's most likely through the text-search and NOT the IMAGE search (they're pretty thourough - try it yourself...it's even work safe in SafeSearch OFF)

    I'll be the first one to Blame Google for just about anything, but for them to make profits of Child Pron? Nope - not even by an unforseen loophole. These guys take such stuff VERY seriously - that I have to give them!

  • Just so no one is confused... (Score:3, Informative)

    by deblau ( 68023 ) <slashdot.25.flickboy@spamgourmet.com> on Friday May 05, 2006 @03:52PM (#15272791) Journal
    FTFA: The suit was filed in the New York Supreme Court.

    Unless you're a lawyer or have some twisted interest in these things, this probably isn't the court you're thinking of. States usually have three levels of courts: trial court, court of last appeal, and an intermediate appellate court. (Some states do away with the latter.) Normally, the Supreme Court is the court of last appeal, but in New York it's backwards [nycourts.gov]. The New York Supreme Court is really the trial court, then comes the Appellate Division, then finally the New York Court of Appeals at the top of the ladder.

    Just FYI.

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