Comments on: It’s Not That You Can’t Trust Google- You Can’t Trust the Law

By: Mike’s Lookout » Blog Archive » Don’t Keep Logs - The Funded Rocks

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 02:59:22 +0000

[...] The Funded shares my views that websites should log nothing, and hasn’t been logging for quite some time. As such, EDF’s subpoena is [...]

By: Diane Bourque

Diane Bourque — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:45:11 +0000

Hi everyone,

I’d be surprised if Google got rid of the logs. Isn’t this information vital to knowing everything that goes on on YouTube? What would Google see in the log information? But I’m all for “Let’s get rid of all the logs on the Internet. NOW!”

I’m of the view that Google will have to find a way to prevent copyright infringement. My understanding is that Viacom asked for videos to be removed. The videos were removed, either by YouTube or by the user. The problem is that the same videos reappeared and Viacom was not happy. I have no idea how YouTube will be able to check EVERY video that is posted on its website. But this is what this case is dealing with in New York.

I’m also following the new law project in France that will create a High Authority for the Internet. France will invest 15 millions euros in this and it should be up and running by January 2009. Lots of details yet to come. But the buzz is that Internet Providers will be forced to police illegal downloading, and report these copyrightminfringements to the High Authority. The user will then get Notices from the Authority. After 3 notices, his Internet connection will be disconnected.

Many interesting legal things going on with the web. You can read what I have to say about some of these things (in French - on my website at http://dianablue.com

keep up the good work!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Aren’t there legal retention requirements for online services, ruling out the option of not keeping logs? As I recall, there was recently debate trying extend the time that companies are required to keep server logs to two years.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:24:48 +0000

Great ideas Jeff. I like the direction.

Of course, lawyers being lawyers, if this were to actually happen (keep no records for privacy sake), lawyers would help pass laws to *require* logs in some cases. Of course, these types of regulations exist in many industries. How long is it until each country has its own laws which represent a Chinese menu (so to speak) of what must be logged and not logged in their country?

Yikes. You know where this is going? It’s going to get more complicated than a daylight-savings-time algorithm.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:30:33 +0000

I agree that an initial stance of not retaining logs is the place to start. The problem is, a recent case has found information temporarily in RAM to be subject to discovery. So even if you weren’t recording these logs at the beginning of the lawsuit, the court can compel you to record them as a part of discovery starting now.

But certainly not having the logs in the first place is a fantastic starting point.

Heck, The big 3 could arrange it such that a networking device irretrievably loses the source IP as part of SNAT at the inbound load balancer. Now that would be an interesting product to produce. You would have to buy such a thing from a third party. If you built it yourself, again the court could compel you to add a logging mechanism. But it would be much harder to compel a disinterested third party company (in a completely different jurisdiction, hopefully) to do so.