Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger

An anonymous reader alerts us to a story out of Israel in which Google (its Israeli subsidiary) gave up the IP address of a Blogger user without being compelled to do so by a court. A preliminary ruling was issued in which a court indicated that the slander the blogger was accused of probably rose to the level of a criminal violation. Google Israel then made a deal with the plaintiffs, local city councilmen whom the blogger had been attacking for a year. Google disclosed the IP address only to the court, which posted a message (Google says the anonymous blogger got it) inviting him/her to contest the ruling anonymously. When no response was received within 3 days, Google turned over the IP address to the plaintiffs' lawyers.

double entendre

Google Gives Up IP of Anonymous Blogger

Sounds like that guy could use a good IP attorney.

Re:double entendre

Sounds like he was not anonymous in the first place. But doesn't this violate Google Privacy policy, giving up address/personal information without a court order? And what about not being evil? Giving up anyones address/identity if some authority asks for it, without going through appropriate legal channels, doesn't sound good to me.

Re:double entendre

I think that this is just a case of responsibility, for the individual to be held accountable for what they say.

  Then you clearly don't know what anonymous means.

Re:double entendre

dunno. i am of the opinion that it should be pretty much impossible for an anonymous person to slander on the internet -- at least, it would sort of make sense that if you are being told something by someone you don't know you shouldn't consider it fact very easily.

i believe that slander, libel, defamation, etc are... perhaps outdated concepts. it is probably better for people to check their sources rather than pretend that it is safe to assume what you hear is true. i personally believe that the freedom to lie should not be restricted, even though lying is certainly a bad thing. this is partially because of how awkward cases for slander and libel and defamation can be.

many people, such as yourself, might define 'freedom of speech' differently from how i define it for myself -- and the law certainly has a different view of it than i do. but that's my opinion, and i think that absolute freedom of communication would work. (specifically, i mean allowing consenting parties to communicate whatever they want, not absolute freedom of speech which might be considered to include yelling into an unsuspecting person's ear)

or, to put it another way, if a mere pseudonym is slandering me, i might just ask, "why trust this person?". if people can learn how easy it is to be lied to, then they might learn to check their references, and slandering will become much more difficult. (of course, i do have significant doubts that people will learn to do this... but if people are sheltered from simple communication, then they might never learn.)

Re:double entendre

i believe that slander, libel, defamation, etc are... perhaps outdated concepts.

I would expect no less from a fascist wife beater like yourself.

Re:double entendre

Judging from your user name, I'm prone to trust you. You sound like a parental figure to me.

Re:double entendre

I would expect no less from a fascist wife beater like yourself.

I dunno, if my wife was a fascist, I'd probably beat her.

Re:double entendre

dunno. i am of the opinion that it should be pretty much impossible for an anonymous person to slander on the internet -- at least, it would sort of make sense that if you are being told something by someone you don't know you shouldn't consider it fact very easily.

Very good point, but there are two reasons I think the concept of slander would still be valid:

a) The cases where anonymous message reveals information that only a reliable source would have, such as a passcode.

b) Even if people *shouldn't* accept self-serving unverifiable statements at face value, they do, and thus slander can wrongfully harm someone.

Re:double entendre

it is probably better for people to check their sources rather than pretend that it is safe to assume what you hear is true. i personally believe that the freedom to lie should not be restricted, even though lying is certainly a bad thing. this is partially because of how awkward cases for slander and libel and defamation can be.

So take the Internet out of the equation.

It's cool for me to post unsigned flyers around your neighborhood, with your photo, full name, and address, claiming that "This man raped my daughter", because people should assume that it's not safe to trust anonymous flyers?

Re:double entendre

Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of anonymous speech.

I keep hearing this argument from the kind of people who you know would love to curtail speech in general. In a country where a large majority vigorously defends free speech, perhaps anonymity would not be necessary. But in a country like the one I live in, where the citizens are told that they have free speech, but where you can be jailed for years for speaking certain truths to your lawyer, spouse, or doctor, and where thugs can come to your home or workplace and intimidate you if you publicly question your rulers, anonymous speech is necessary. When the government tries to ban certain types of speech, having a way to speak anonymously nullifies the ban. Sometimes it is necessary for a thing to be said anonymously at first, so that it can be discussed openly afterward.

Re:double entendre

Would you consider this to be true even when the speech isn't true?

Yes. One price of free speech is misinformation. This is true regardless of anonymity. Look at the Swift Vets, for instance. And my instinct is that anything said anonymously is automatically not slanderous, because it either contains evidence or it has no weight. That, of course, is my moral opinion, not a legal one.

Re:double entendre

in a country like the one I live in, where the citizens are told that they have free speech, but where you can be jailed for years for speaking certain truths to your lawyer, spouse, or doctor, and where thugs can come to your home or workplace and intimidate you if you publicly question your rulers, anonymous speech is necessary.

That's why so many people are moving out of California.

Re:double entendre

What happens when the person being slandered is denied the ability to stop it using the courts because there isn't enough evidence to justify revealing the IP address but the slander continues. How would you feel if this was happening to you and google declined to hep without a court order? How long would this take and can the damage ever be repaired?

Saying "the person being slandered" begs the question of whether slander has been committed.

If a court determines slander has been committed, the court will order the owner of the IP to be revealed, and presumably punished. Any "damages" can then be pursued in a civil suit. You seem to be arguing that you should have the right to demand the identity of anyone who you claim to have slandered you without regard for any standards of proof.

Premature, But Ultimately Correct

The court order should have come first, but Google ultimately did the right thing. Questions of alleged criminal activity were in play. I'd certainly want the chance to dispute such allegations were they made against me.

So what if I murder somebody?

Everyone eventually dies anyway.

Following due process is important and Google should have done so. Releasing info without court demand is as bad as searching without a warrant.

Interesting...

...in contrast to Google's vow to protect its users' privacy [boston.com] early last year. Although this is a very different situation...criminal libel instead of general aggregate use data. Perhaps Google cares about its users as a whole but not as individuals.

Re:Interesting...

> First the Israeli court came for the Israeli criminal blogger. But I was not an Israeli criminal blogger so I did nothing.
> Next the Israeli court ... did some kind of Israeli law thing ... and then the story kind of went nowhere ... so again, I did nothing.
> I really need something to do. But I lack motivation. I suppose I could blog ... nah.

And when (in Soviet Russia!), the Jews came for YOU, Google had already given them your IP address!

Re:Interesting...

Perhaps Google cares about its users as a whole but not as individuals.

tell me why Google should ignore criminal abuse of its networks and services.

tell me why someone shouldn't have the right to ask Google for help in the prosecution of a crime.

tell me when "the right to privacy" became a right to injure others anonymously - safe from any consequences.

Re:Interesting...

Who gets to define "criminal"?

The government. Any and all governments. Each individual government in each individual jurisdication where that government holds power. Even governments we view as being corrupt or morally reprehensible to the determent of their own people.

How is this different from turning over the id of a Chinese journalist?

Google was ordered to by the legal court in the country. Google was not ordered so in this case. There was no court order, merely a preliminary ruling. Different country, different law.

When powerful people get to define what is a crime, then I'm not easy about "criminal" being used as a justifier for the breaking of confidentiality.

Tough. Criminals have few rights, in some countries less than others. Rights to a "fair trial" or "innocent until proven guilty" are all at the discretion of the ruling power in the land - whichever land that may be - and often on a case by case basis. And yes, some governments define almost everybody as a criminal and then apply whatever punishment they want.

That's life. Reality bites. Has been for all civilisations for all time, including the one you live in and the one I live in now.

And no, you shouldn't feel comfortable about it, but then there is nothing you can do to change it. Just avoid getting caught in those countries by those governments.

Re:Interesting...

Google was not compelled by a court order to reveal the IP address. It is the judiciary's role to decide whether the plaintiffs are entitled to that information.

Before we go down this road, it would be helpful to know a little more about relevant laws in Israel. The article indicates that the judge made it clear to Google that it seemed to be a case of criminal activity. Google "took the hint" and provided the information. Without knowing what the law in Israel says about disclosing this type of information during this stage of a court case, it's difficult for us to comment on it.

So, can anybody in Israel with legal knowledge comment?

Re:Interesting...

So, can anybody in Israel with legal knowledge comment?

Apparently not.

However, it seems plenty of people can act as armchair lawyers, and assume that the Israeli laws are the same as the US. Most likely, their not. We need better information.

Re:Interesting...

Shalom/Salaam,

I'm not a lawyer, but some of my friends are.... anyway, here's a summary based on what was written in TheMarker.com (business press part of the largest newspaper) had to say:

This anonymous blogger has been writing 3 members of a small local town council (Shaarei Tikva, population 4,500) accusing them of bribery and municipal tax fraud (specifically: lying about their status to get tax breaks - probably saying they are retired, or have smaller properties than they have or haven't declared their swimming pools or something relatively minor). The plaintiffs say this is slander. The Plaintiffs and Google came to an agreement that Google would notify the blogger (they say he read the notification) that he could give up his identity and appear in court, or let them know that he was going send a lawyers letter contesting the claims and he would be represented in court as "John Doe"(or actually the Aramaic word "Ploni" equivalent) and Google would provide his IP address to the court. He did neither.

The judge said this was a suitable arrangement which on the one hand protects the freedom of speech of the Accused and the Plaintiffs right to defend their reputations. The judge emphasized that 2 weeks ago a judge had ruled in a case against one of the national newspaper sites (www.ynet.co.il) that details of a Poster (blogger or reponse to a news item) can be given over only if the content of the posting can lead to legal proceedings for Slander. Secondly, there was a ruling in April which stated that the Posters address can be revealed if Slander proceedings are waiting on it and it can be provided as "Further Deposition" (or some legal term which means some additional evidence that can influence the case).

In the judges opinion, there are considerations on both sides: on the one hand, since we're talking about competition over a public position, the public's right to know (the slander) in addition to the deterring surfers from expressing themselves on the internet lean towards protecting the anonymity of the surfer. On the other, you can argue that reputation is even more important to those running for public office. The judge ruled that as we we're talking about the defendents being public figures running for re-election, there is a need to define a new balance between freedom of expression and protection of reputation.

I'm not sure people would have been going ape-shit about this if it was only a national paper's website being in the process (as had happened a few weeks ago). The fact that it's Google Israel means that we're all assuming that Larry and Sergey have been sharing all our information with any legal authority that requests it, which I'm not sure is the case. I'm not convinced it's evil either. Should offline national slander laws apply to online speech?

Good

You need to stand up for your views..

Conflicting thoughts

Upon reading this article, two thoughts are conflicting in my head.. "Damn, turns out Google is evil..", "but wait! Google can't be evil, I mean, look at their motto!".

Truly, I'm confused, please oh wise Slashdotters, enlighten me, is Google evil or not, and why?

Re:Conflicting thoughts

And the CIA is evil because?..

Because they're a Corpor.. err.. crap! My communist hippie logic is failing me again..

Re:Conflicting thoughts

The usual [wikipedia.org] - hiding war criminals, assassination, overthrowing democratically elected governments and supporting bloody coups, misinformation...

You know, now that I step back and really take a look at it, CIA really reminds me of a fuzzy little bunny.

Slippery Slope....

Now Google starts to slide into the abyss with Microsoft/Sony/SCO and all the other evil companies.

Do No Evil

I guess that doesn't mean much to Google anymore.

Re:Do No Evil

Not to be too pedantic, but the actual informal motto [google.com] is "Don't be evil". It has more to do with how they are, not what they do.

What could be more fair?

FTA:

Quote: "The notice would invite the blogger to disclose his identity, participate in the hearing, or oppose the disclosure of his identity by filing a motion as "anonymous"."
End Quote

Hey after all he was warned. "...the Israeli blogger who used "Google Blogger" for a blog in which he slandered Shaarei Tikva council members running for reelection. ..." In a free democracy, he should have know better than to slander someone in Israel, guess he should have used the Arab Media.

Not necessarily bad (read before flaming me)...

I'm not sure that I fully understand the situation, but if Google had waited until the final ruling to release the IP would that have actually prevented the blogger in question from fighting the ruling? If that is the case then short of simply defying a court order (which is something that should be considered on a case by case basis) this would seem to have been the best thing Google could have done. Had they waited they would have been allowing the plaintiff to "pull an RIAA" on the guy (or girl). If, on the other hand, that is not the case then shame on Google (a bit anyway - I still think Yahoo's games with the guy in China were much worse, but that doesn't excuse this).

Please understand... it's Israel

They had several servers at gun point when they asked for the IP address.

How Can You

Slander a politician? Did he accuse them of honesty?

What the hell...

Have any of you considered that the Mossad has plants working AT Google, and that (like other countries with plants working in key or security-critical employers-- civil or private) that plant's duty was to monitor, collect, report on, sanitize, and enable the use of it for government purposes, whether to bring charges against someone or to slander someone?

Most of the comments so far (among the 1st 15) make it seem like Google is slipping into the hells. It very well could be that MOD/Israel contacted Google USA out of cursory moves, but already planned to use the IP collected whether or NOT GUSA assented, and probably had plans to SAY GUSA cooperated.

Of course, the US State Department and other agencies might WELCOME this, as another ruse/means of getting 'merkuns to RELAX their expectations of privacy over security.

Any more informed or better opinions to follow those prior to my own (slanted) assumptions here?

Basic precuation

For anything you do not want to be easily traced back to you, use Tor. Much better than relying on any intermediate parties to withhold your identity -- even if they mean the best.

Keep in mind

This is Isreal, not America. Its laws and enviroment is Different. This also was not a google CEO choice, it was probably some middle manager in Isreal.

"probably"

Such a mighty legal term.

Location, location

It's pretty obvious that a court order was forthcoming. Google just smoothed things out and caused a little less paperwork. A dangerous path to go down, but I think in this instance there was no harm done. As a side note, I find it interesting who the plaintiffs were. Last time I checked, in the US public officials are unlikely to sue for libel, since they have to prove malice (either the defendant knew the statements were false, or published them with reckless disregard for the truth). That's a pretty hard barrier to overcome, since you have to prove something about what the defendant knew and thought.

Three days isn't nearly long enough

According to the article, Google released the blogger's identity when he failed to respond within 72 hours. That is MUCH too fast. Even if he dropped what he was doing and acted immediately, it would still take longer than that to figure out what's going on, get a lawyer, and draft a response. That's ignoring the fact that he probably didn't receive the message immediately (subtract 24 hours), probably had other things on his plate (subtract another 24 hours) and may not have even realized that the notice was legit. (An e-mail is not a legitimate court summon. If you receive one which claims to be, it is probably a scam.)

What will they do?

Maybe the blogger will be "in the army and off to the front", and therefore, unable to comment!

Comcast vs Google vs Apple vs MS

Google: would require a court order to give the IP. negotiated a weak compromise. handed over IP.

Comcast: Would give the IP without a court order, offer to enable electronic wiretaps, and give full logs of everything that IP did.

Apple: Would require a court order to give IP. Negotiate a weak compromise. Hand over the IP on a sleek and stylish apple brand flash drive.

Microsoft:

It appears you are trying to arrest an anonymous person. Would you like me to:

*Find their unique CPU ID?

*Transmit contents of their hard drive?

*Enable back door key logger?

*Contact Microsoft Sales representative for more options?

Mandatory to log the IPs?

Does google have to log the IPs? IIRC some libraries are not keeping the logs/keeping a limited log of who borrowed which book.

So What?

I love how all the slashbots defend anybody, in any court case, as long as they aren't a business, big or small, and do something online. Slander DOES exist, and it does happen, and while there is a chance the case is BS, it might very well be legitimate. Just because somebody's a blogger dosen't mean that they're innocent, and the court could have gotten the guy's IP if they really wanted to anyway. Besides, it's not like they're going to behead the guy if he's found guilty, and Israel's court system doesn't seem too dysfunctional. On a side note, however, it is a bit disconcerting that Google will give it away that easily. I can understand if they were asked by the court, but Google seems to be headed downhill.

Easy solution

Google wouldn't be able to do such evil if it only stored the IP addresses of its users for immediate necessary use, and discarded them. Keeping data indefinitely, such that they can be reinterpreted and abused in ways unimaginable at the time , makes such problems as these likely.

Think it was approved by Google's Mother Ship?

I doubt it...likely a local decision made at the local office in Israel. No doubt this Google manager is in for a shitstorm from the Mother Ship.