Tech Shout!

In an effort to support its unsuccessful Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the US Department of Justice has asked 34 Internet Service Providers, search firms and security software companies to submit all the data on its customers’ search habits.

COPA is a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting children from harmful sexual material on the internet.

Last week Google managed to get a partial court victory over the DoJ and managed to send the government away largely empty handed.

According to Information Week, which got the data using a Freedom of Information Act request, the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to more than 34 other ISPs and security companies, which comprises of a broad range of companies, including AT&T, Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, EarthLink, LookSmart, SBC Communications (then separate from AT&T), Symantec, and Verizon.

Apparently some have said no and the DoJ is dragging them to court too.

The DoJ is especially interested in the search engine LookSmart, since the company runs an Internet content filtering software company called Net Nanny.

One of the key reasons behind DoJ’s keen insistence on the demand of the information is to prove that such companies are not effective in blocking child access to sites that contain porn or pedophiles.

The full list of companies subpoenaed by the Department of Justice includes: 711Net (Mayberry USA), American Family Online, AOL, AT&T, Authentium, BellSouth, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast Cable Company, Computer Associates, ContentWatch, Cox Communications, EarthLink, Google, Internet4Families, LookSmart, McAfee, MSN, Qwest, RuleSpace, S4F (Advance Internet Management), SafeBrowse, SBC Communications, Secure Computing Corp., Security Software Systems, SoftForYou, Solid Oak Software, SurfControl, Symantec, Time Warner, Tucows (Mayberry USA), United Online, Verizon, and Yahoo.