Contextual Search … The Bush Administration Way

In an unbelievable act of hubris, even for this Administration, the Department of Justice has subpoenaed Google for a week’s worth of search records for one million random Web addresses. One million random Web addresses. That would be like Citibank sending credit card offers to everyone in the  Los Angeles white pages. It’s absurd.

And the worst of it is that the Administration isn’t even doing this in service to the War on Terrorism or for some other national security reason. No, according to the San Jose Mercury News, the DOJ is mounting a case to revive a child protection law struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago. In this case “the enemy” means a handful of scholarly lawyers who actually base their decisions on rational consideration of the facts … versus the latest petulant ultimatums of their right-wing donors.

While I have my suspicions about Google and their big black box, kudos to them for refusing to comply with this ridiculous demand. And for the Bush Administration, I might suggest a little course in target marketing.

To quote Danny Sullivan: “Here's a thought. If you want to measure how much porn is showing up in searches, try searching for it yourself rather than issuing privacy alarm sounding subpoenas. It would certainly be more accurate.”