The day after, for the scores...

A very good article summing up the issues and scores on this Feds-asking-for-search-engine-data hoopla, from SearchEnginewatch.

First, let me stand corrected here that as most people have agreed on, this is not really an issue of privacy, since there were no personally identifiable information given out (or request by the US Government). But this centers more on trust-- can we trust search engince companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, AskJeeves, etc) to hold their ground in protecting their user's data? And for how long can they do that?

Okay, so the big 2 (Yahoo and Google), as well as MSN and AOL got the requests from the government. Everyone except for Google complied. There's a very importan point that I'm itching to nail down about all these happenings, but nothing brings it home better the way Danny Sullivan did:

Since Google first started growing in stature, people have wondered if (or when) they might start passing along private information to governments or misusing it for their own gain. The company has faced hyperactive attention in this space, while others, as I have written largely got a free ride from criticism. Moreover, the privacy freakout about Google was based on lots of "might dos" or "could dos" rather than "has done."

Yesteryday was a historic moment in answering some of those doubts. What might Google do, if faced with an unreasonable demand from a government agency? Google will push back And what might its competitors do, who have faced nowhere near the same amount of criticism? Comply.

I suggest you go ahead an read the whole article, but for those who want to know how Danny scored the search engine companies, here's his take:

Google - 9 pts
Yahoo - 4
MSN - 1
AOL - 1

These are more than mere scores though. Go read all about it.

MSN has a post on their Search blog that tries to explain their side.