Unless you've been in solitary confinement over the last few days, you've probably read all about the Google vs US Dept. of Justice issue where as part of its effort to uphold an online pornography law, the Justice Department had asked a federal judge to compel Google to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries. Google is resisting the request, but Yahoo, MSN and America Online have turned over similar information.

We at PreFound.com have been deluged with questions related to how this issue might affect the usage of community search sites, since sites like ours ask for specific information about users and users can even interact with each other. The general feeling is that the Google vs DOJ could have a cooling effect on people using community search sites. We don't think that is the case.

First, any trending downward of usage of search sites (or any type of site for that matter) will take a while to track. The sheer number of users out there that search is a big mass to push in any direction, and any effect this case will have will take a while to be statistically analyzed. So, basically, we won't know anything for a while. Any data at this point will be colloquial in nature, but still potentiall useful.

Second, community and social sites, including community search sites like PreFound.com are actually less likely to be affected by the Google vs DOJ case than traditional search sites like Google, Yahoo, et al. Why? Because on community sites like PreFound.com, users are making a conscious decision to be part of a community and expose a very controlled amount about themselves, tend to read the sites privacy policy carefully because of this decision and expect interaction from the site and from the community.

The New York Times ran a story today that quoted a PreFound.com user, Dr. Genny Ballard of Danville, KY, that relates to this idea. Dr. Ballard also discussed the issue with me and said, "There is plenty of information to be gathered about me though as I belong to online groups and listserves and I leave cookies on my machine. Using a search engine, like Google, is more depersonalized than being part of a Wiki or an online community, like Prefound, because as an active member of an online community, you expect to share information. While we know search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo collect personal data about their users perhaps we might have to start thinking about what they should be allowed to do with that data." This states the issue succinctly.

Bottom line, it's doubtful that the Google vs DOJ issue will have much effect on community search and social web sites in general. But, any perceived threat to user privacy on the web is a negative for Internet commerce in general. The fundamental difference between the Internet and television is that one can INTERACT with the Internet. Threaten that, and it could be a problem in the long view.

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