When the Internet shatters

Online you can find anything. You can read about someone's birthday in India, you can read someone's blog in Europe, or you can buy something from Iran. You can find anything from anywhere on the Internet. Or can you?

Google, internet-search powerhouse, recently has been accused of being evil because they are working with the Chinese government by filtering "sensitive" topics that are a threat to their national security, such as the word "democracy."

"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," a Google statement said.

Google is not the only one; MSN has been criticized for helping the Chinese arrest a man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for what he published online. The man posted "inappropriate" material on a MSN network, and Microsoft helped China track him down.

Internet companies are willing to obey Chinese laws because China is the 2nd largest online market. If a law stand in the way of a company making billions, then the company will change, not the law.

"It's likely that the Internet of tomorrow will look radically different from different parts of the world," said Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, according to The Washington Post. New technology will reduce the size of the Internet.

Geographical tracking systems, or "geolocation," can find a user based only on the Internet address. Search engines were the first to use the technology. For example, if you do a search for "pizza," the top results will be for local places. But the technology can also be used to restrict access to a site based on where you live.

The gambling industry was the next one to widely use the technology. It is illegal for Americans to place bets online. However, the reason you can is because the servers are outside the country. But with geolocation technology, sites can stop Americans from entering. The sites can comply with the U.S. government and uphold the law.

President Bush is in hot water for spying on Americans without a warrant by using "electronic" means. I am sure his program used geolocation technology. You could track who is viewing pages from the Middle East. This would not be the first time a government has interfered with the Internet.

France sued Yahoo! because Yahoo! allowed Nazi collectibles to be sold in its auction pages. Selling hate material is illegal in France. France wanted Yahoo! to use geolocation technology, but Yahoo! refused on principal and said it would be infeasible because that would require Yahoo! to make a filter for every country and know the laws of all 200 countries. A U.S. court ruled in favor of Yahoo! saying the first Amendment trumps overseas laws.

"It used to be that a person sitting in one place could get or send information anywhere in the world," said Jack Goldsmith, a professor of international law at the University of Chicago, according to google-watch.org. "But now the Internet is starting to act more like real space with all its limitations."

There have been many acts by governments and companies to construct barriers for the Internet. We must remember that the Internet was based on the free movement of ideas, and fight when someone takes that away. It will be a sad day when the Internet becomes discrete in nature.