'Big Brother' Rejected By Online Poll

By: Andrew Peters

Posted: 3/17/06

Most Americans are "none too happy" with the way their internet privacy is being treated by the government and some major search engines, according to UConn Center for Survey Research and Analysis Director Dr. Samuel Best and the center's new national poll.

The poll comes in light of a recent government subpoena that requires some major search engines to turn over monthly records of user-performed searches in an ongoing federal effort to protect minors from internet pornography. As proposed, the government will only receive information about the search queries themselves, not the users who performed them.

Though most of the subpoenaed search engines have complied with the request for records, the internet giant Google remains firmly opposed to the government order-as do the majority of Americans, according to the survey.

Fifty percent of the 800 adults surveyed said they oppose the internet companies turning over their users' queries to the government, while 44 percent approved of compliance with the subpoena. Still more-60 percent of all respondents-oppose the search engines' practice of storing their users' behaviors at all, compared to only 32 percent who support keeping search records.

Results were similar between internet users and non-users, but there was a distinct party-line divergence, "in all likelihood due to Republican control of the government," according to a press release. In general, Republicans tended to favor the search engines' compliance in handing over search topics, while most Democrats thought they should resist.

Thirteen percent said they had searched for web sites that they "would not want others to know about," but Best stressed that the implications of the question are not necessarily pornographic.

"Everybody has their own definition of doing things that they don't want people to know they're doing," Best said. "We have to be careful about inferring our definition of what's unacceptable on other people."

One thing is clear, however -the public is uncomfortable with the latest instance of government surveillance.

"We've found that we're in an environment where people are sensitive about government surveillance," Best said. "It's not surprising that the results we found on this are similar to results we've found on the Patriot Act, NSA wire-tapping and the like."

"People are very cautious and wary of the government acting in these areas," he said.

As frequent internet users, college students are concerned as well.

"It's okay if search engines want to offer their searches to the government," said John DiBenedetto, a 2nd-semester mechanical engineering major, "but the government shouldn't be forcing them to do it. It's none of their business - and if they are allowed to do this, then what next?"