Internet mammoth Google, perhaps one of the Web’s most trusted companies, has voluntarily given an Israeli court the IP address of an anonymous blogger. The prosecutor of the case, which centers on allegations that were posted on Blogger about three members of the Shaarei Tikva council, asked the court to demand that Google hand over the IP address of the anonymous blogger, but the court did not order Google to do so. Rather, Google handed over the anonymous blogger’s IP address to the court and plaintiffs without any legal requirement!
If this were just another shady Internet company then fine, what else is to be expected, but this is Google! The Google! The same Google who at the onset of this case said that “disclosing the blogger’s identity violated rulings on the balance between freedom of expression and a person’s right to his reputation.” Hypocrites!
The reason this upsets me so much, and why you as well should be outraged, is consider how much private information Google has collected about you. Do you use Google Adsense, Analytics, Calendar, Docs, Gmail, Groups, iGoogle, Maps, Picasa, Reader, Talk, Web History, or Webmaster Tools like I do? Or perhaps, Google Desktop, Earth, Finance, Notebook, Orkut, Toolbar or Blogger? If you can answer yes to using any of those then sorry to be the bearer of bad news folks but Google has private information about you on file.
I’m extremely disappointed in Google’s behavior on this one. They are one of the few Internet behemoths able to (I think) live up to the high standards placed upon it by the Internet populace. Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for everyone’s favorite search engine.