Battleangel

With the decline of net neutrality, Google may soon lose its ‘Free Lunch’ as one Verizon executive put it. And whatever one thinks of Google, that can’t be good news for the end user. The same sort of attacks on the open and free internet have been frequent these last couple of years. It is very clear that the powers that be want to regain control. Control over the public mind, control over the dissemination of information and control of a potential cash cow. The most recent case is courtesy of a Jeffrey Toback, a U.S. politician who apparently likes to Google for pr0n.

“Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term ‘democracy,’” the complaint states, “but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation’s innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime’s worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children.”

Because obviously, Americans wish their part of the Internet worked more like China? And yeah, the censorship of the Chinese government probably covers child pornography too. So please, feel free to move there. The argument that Google accedes to the demands of China while doing no censorship at home pales in comparison to the humongous hypocrisy of U.S. politicians bashing censorship abroad and praising it at home.
Google already complies with law enforcement and has a clear content policy. They also themselves offer SafeSearch. But that doesn’t really matter to Toback because he doesn’t know his ass from a computer.

Toback, self-described as “not the most computer-literate guy,” said he learned of the filter three days ago. He said he didn’t know if the computers in his home have commercial filtering software that blocks pornography and other material unsuitable for children.

Toback sure has been a busy bee:

He has also co-sponsored a law designed to protect teenagers from tanning beds and has planned this year to pursue a ban of toy guns in the area.

And they wonder why the Democrats in the U.S. have been declining. Toy guns, pretty funny idea that for a nation that has been in a state of perpetual war for decades. Yeah, it must be the toy guns.