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Google holds the ball

Companies such as Yahoo and Google today carry an enormous amount of clout on the Net, and with that influence comes a massive burden of responsibility.

Given the global, borderless nature of the Net, just staying out of legal trouble can be a major headache when you're trying to please everyone at once.

When Yahoo bent to the will of Chinese authorities and handed over evidence resulting in the imprisonment of bloggers writing anti-government pieces, many in the west were appalled.

Likewise, the apparent acceptance of censorship by Microsoft, Yahoo and Google in response to the Chinese government's demands is something that is hard for many to swallow.

And now Google may well be forced to make another line-call, but this time the bullying will come from our own New Zealand government.

Yes, I'm talking about the story that just won't die -- the CYFWatch blog and the way it's got right up the nose of so many in power who appear to have some dirty laundry they'd rather not be aired.

According to this report from the NZ Herald, the government's lawyers are trying to bully Google into pulling the blog concerned, just like the Chinese government did.

Of course the sheer stupidity of this move beggars belief.

It should not surprise some of us however, who have watched in amazement as this issue has been repeatedly mishandled and, as a result, has exploded from being just a little backwater bitch-blog into becoming a major blot on the government's copybook.

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Now the nation's appalling track-record in child abuse will be highlighted for the entire planet to see -- all because a hand-full of incompetent public servants in the Ministry for Social Development simply don't understand how to handle Net-related issues.

New Zealand's government will undoubtedly be compared to that of China, as news of its attempted suppression of free speech becomes headline news around the world.

A website that would have otherwise attracted just hundreds of visitors will now probably score millions of hits and the very issues the government sought to suppress will become disseminated and publicised around the globe.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the content on that site, the big story today is just how stupid the government and its lawyers really are.

The question all Kiwi taxpayers should be asking is "why didn't they get expert advice on how to handle this issue" before blundering in with their lawyers locked and loaded?

And why are we spending what will inevitably be a huge amount of taxpayer money on legal action in another jurisdiction, when that money would clearly be better spent addressing the problems that have prompted such a site to appear in the first place?

Listen Helen, Mike and all you other clearly Net-culture-ignorant public servants. Give me a call next time you're faced with a situation like this and I'll explain how things work in the new world of cyberspace.

I'll explain that the worst thing you can do is effectively shout "don't look at this, look-away, look-away" at the top of your virtual voice.

Do you think the government will listen?

Of course not. There will always be a culture-clash between those in power and those who have the power to challenge their attempts at stifling free speech.

But now the ball is well and truly in Google's court.

Will the Net-giant capitulate to the bully-boy demands of a tiny South Pacific nation's minority government? Or will they remember that their customers and their very raison d'etre are the millions (perhaps billions) of internet users who abhor censorship of their beloved web.

Which way do you think Google will jump?

How will it change your opinion of Google if they ask "how high madam" when our government says "jump"?

Do you think the government has handled this whole issue badly and is simply pouring fat on the fire by its latest threats and plans of legal action?

Given how much the government spends on "consultants" and "expert advice", should they have invested just a small amount of money on getting some intelligent input before they acted in this case?

Have your say on this...

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