...is that the Bush Administration isn't asking as part of an actual criminal investigation. They're demanding the confidential information to help them overturn a Supreme Court ruling that suspended the noxious so-called "Child Online Protection Act". They're using the power of the subpoena to draft a private company to do the research for their legal team in a campaign to defy a Supreme Court ruling that--in perfect irony--was meant to protect privacy and free speech.

I admire Google for resisting as long as they did, and maybe the compromise is the best deal they could cut. But's going to hurt them. It's not well-known, but Web sites can opt-out of Google by filling out an online form. Also, sites can request that Google not cache their pages. I'd be surprised if the porn site operators haven't already taken those prudent steps. If Google stops honoring the opt-out requests, there are additional defensive measures available to block the Google spider from entering a site.

Not that subtracting porn sites from Google is that big a deal, but it won't stop there. Other sites will join in to protest the action. I'm tempted, but I'd need to set up a local search engine, because at the moment Zoners rely on Google to index the Zone. And we'd give up the links that occasionaly bring people here.

Maybe we need to hold a referendum on the question? I don't think I have the right to decide on my own to withdraw half a gigabyte of Zoner writing from Google.