Harvard Study Researches Web Sites Blocked by Google

Under intense pressure from the governments of Germany and France, Internet search engine, Google, has reportedly blocked more than 100 Web sites from French and German versions of its index. The sites allegedly include content expressing devotion to the white supremacist philosophy and support for Nazism, among other things. Filtering of Web sites due to their content is part of an ongoing study at Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School, under the watch of Professor Jonathan Zittrain and law student, Ben Edelman. Their initial report, published at www.cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering , seeks volunteers to assist in comparing Google's directories in various countries to discover other examples of content filtering. On Wednesday, Google issued a statement that it had removed sites "that may conflict with local laws" from the German and French versions of its index "to avoid legal liability," and that it had acted on a case-by-case basis, after receiving notices or complaints from "partners, users, government agencies, and the like." Professor Zittrain expressed concern over content censorship on the Internet, stating that undetectable filtering leaves Google users in the dark about the information being withheld: "People don't know what they don't know." While Edelman admitted that some of the filtered sites he had viewed were, in fact, very offensive, he felt Google had acted prematurely. "This is like terra incognita right now. There are not settled norms and practices for how Google should be dealing with these requests. This is the moment to try to frame a consistent set of practices that make sense, rather than doing it by the seat of the pants."