USA
- Search Engines and the Global Online Freedom Act
of 2007
The
Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 was approved in a unanimous voice vote by
the Foreign Affairs Committee. The bill seeks to "prohibit
US internet companies from cooperating with repressive regimes that restrict
information about human rights and democracy on the internet and use personally
identifiable information to track down and punish democracy activists."
Under § 202 of The
Global Online Freedom Act of 2006, businesses that provide search engine
services would be prohibited from altering the operation of the search engine
with respect to “protected filter terms” at the request of the governments of
designated Internet-restricting countries like China, or in a manner that would
be likely to produce different search results for users accessing the service
from within the designated countries.This requirement was removed from GOFA in
June 2007.
Under § 203 of The Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, businesses providing
search engine services would only be required to report to a newly-created Office of
Global Internet Freedom the terms and requirements for filtering that are
specified to them by the governments of designated countries.
SEC. 203. Transparency
regarding search engine filtering (Global Online Freedom Act of 2007)
Any United States business that creates, provides, or hosts an Internet
search engine shall provide the Office of Global Internet Freedom, in a
format and with a frequency to be specified by the Office, with all terms
and parameters used to filter, limit, or otherwise affect the results
provided by the search engine that are implemented--
(1) at the request of, or by reason of any other direct or indirect
communication by, any foreign official of an Internet-restricting
country; or
(2) to comply with a policy or practice of restrictions on Internet
freedom in an Internet-restricting country.
SEC. 202. Integrity of search
engines (Global Online Freedom Act of 2006)
Any United States business that creates, provides, or hosts any Internet
search engine may not alter the operation of such search engine with respect
to protected filter terms either--
(1) at the request of, or by reason of any other direct or indirect
communication by, of a foreign official of an Internet-restricting
country; or
(2) in a manner intended or likely to produce different search engine
results for users accessing the search engine from within an
Internet-restricting country as compared to users elsewhere.
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