Boing-boing has put out a call for MSN, Yahoo, and AOL to publically release the data they submitted to the Justice Department.

You may remember that recently, the United States Justice Department subpoenad Google, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL to release user search data. All but Google complied in some form or fashion. Boing-Boing has requested that MSN, Yahoo and AOL publically release the data submitted to the Justice Department. EFF (Electronic Fronteir Foundation) co-founder John Gilmore has stated:

If Yahoo, MSN, and AOL didn’t reveal any personal info to DoJ, let’s see them publicly post the results that they sent back to the DoJ.

They sent “a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms, and not results, from a roughly one day period” (AOL)? Let’s see it. The public can decide whether there are privacy violations in there.

They sent “a random collection of page URLs that we had web-crawled”? Let’s see them.

No need for barrels of ink to speculate with, let’s just look at them. There can’t be a problem with looking, if there’s no personal privacy issues involved. There’s no trade secrets here — these are queries typed by end users, and web pages set up by end users. Right?

Just like Boing-Boing, I cannot issue subpoenas; but just like Boing-Boing, I would like to know.

I hereby issue a request to America Online, Microsoft, and Yahoo! to release the data submitted to the DoJ, publicly, or to show us where such data already exists online. This way, everyone who uses those services can look for themselves and decide whether or not their privacy was violated by said information. (Although one couldn’t do much, as it was legally subpoenaed. No lawsuits could legitimately come of this, as the DoJ legally obtained the data, whether it was privacy-violating, or not. (This is, of course, assuming there was a legitimate legal reason for obtaining said data. If such a reason was not found to exist, then certainly, one may sue for a violation of inherent privacy.))

I also encourage each of you to post a call like this in your own blogs. Let’s get the message out. The more this appears online, the more likely the companies will reveal the data.

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