^{Democracy & Technology Blog} Google’s “Infinite Database” targeted by Rep. Markey

Google thinks everyone should have the right to visit any legal web site they choose — as long as it can track every move and remains free to manage the data in its wisdom.
Google maintains server logs that record the date, time and originating IP address of every search query and subsequent click on a link. The New York Times reported in 2002 that Google collects “150 million queries a day in its databases, updating and storing the computer logs millisecond by millisecond.”
If you were a prosecutor, an investigator or a private plaintiff, could you resist the temptation to examine this material? And what about the more serious problem of theft and loss? If Gen. Wesley Clark’s mobile phone records can be purchased by anyone, its just a matter of time before someone can obtain server logs from Google or one of the other Internet companies who compile this information. The decision(s) to create a “bottomless, timeless database” (the words of Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)) was an error of judgment — one that Google now hopes to offset by unfairly portraying the Bush Administration as a villain for seeking aggregated data to protect children from online pornography.
Google and the other Internet companies who store server logs should have seen this one coming. Permanent server logs are about as wise as blocking the web site of a competitor. Both reflect an indifference to the rights and expectations of consumers. Madison River Communication’s mistake in blocking the web site of Vonage Holdings Corp. was an isolated incident. Server logs apparently are an industry practice.
Rep. Markey has announced he will introduce legislation to require the destruction of “personally identifiable information derived from a consumer’s Internet use” by Internet companies beyond a reasonable period. You can’t argue with Rep. Markey’s objective, just like you can’t argue with the objective of network neutrality. But in both cases the likelihood is that if Congress does pass legislation it will be a clumsy affair that goes too far in some respects and not far enough in others.