The current ish of Wired has a long feature talking about Google's moral divining rod, personified by founder Sergey Brin. Brin trys to follow the engineer's ethos, which Google's mission statement sums up as "Don't be evil" (compare with Bare Bones Software's: "BBEdit: It Doesn't Suck"). Brin's charged with evaluating the relative evilness of different possible paths, and he does so admirably, but now he's faced with new challenges: governments, religions and overly litigous entrepreneurs are all trying to influence Google's activities. Google really has become a critical piece of the Internet's infrastructure — can a company that important be trusted to never be evil?
In fact, Google didn't fold entirely. After consulting with Brin, Kulpreet Rana, Google's head of IP, found a way that Google could comply with the law without letting the Scientologists erase their critics from the Internet. The solution: When Google gets a request to remove a link under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA Section 512, it substitutes a link to a form on the Chilling Effects' site. The form contains the Web address of the page in question, and anyone still interested in the site can direct their browser to the address.
Does abiding by the letter of a bad and flimsy law absolve Google from charges that it squashed free expression? Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is certain that a vigorous legal challenge would put an end to the steady flow of Section 512 filings Google receives but admits she doesn't expect Google to devote its resources to such a broad fight. And while some cheered Google's workaround as evidence of a rebellious bit of payback – a small point scored against the enemies of unfettered speech – the move is another instance of Brin choosing the path of usefulness over a righteous crusade.
(via /.)
