You're right. Some companies and organizations are practically stumbling over themselves to comply with subpoenas that demand user info. The Federal Government is behind this and it has them scared. The RIAA, the music industry's attack dogs, already tried getting big, general lists of user records but they failed in court.
The RIAA did force Verizon telephone to reveal info on an individual user (of broadband) who they said was a hub distributor of mp3 files. Verizon said no, initially, but a court agreed with the RIAA because they wanted the records of one guy, not of millions of users pulled randomly from a database, as Bush and his lawyers are demanding of Google. W says he wants the info to construct a baseline for identifying child pornography distributors on the internet. Of course, he'll search for "terrorist activity" at the same time. The child pornography ploy is an effort get the public behind this massive invasion of privacy.
Google hasn't given the Government anything yet, and they don't want to because it would be really bad for their business. Even if Google does alllow the Justice Department to look at its database I do not see a risk in using that MP3 search string. The Government isn't looking for MP3 file transfer traffic, couldn't care less about it (for now), and won't let the RIAA near the lists they may get access to.
http://www.anonymizer.com/ or a similar service is the best way to search the internet if you really want to cover your tracks. These private internet access companies won't hesitate to cooperate with the authorities if you're involved in criminal activity. But, the average Joe who isn't already being sought by the police really has nothing to worry about; the surf records of anonymous users are recorded, of course, but the database doesn't show who is behind the masked IPs. So, you'd have to take quite a few steps, including court where you would have to show cause to get a judge to back you, before you could ever get a hold ofthese records. And then once you did have them the info isn't easy to analyse. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it's more trouble than it is worth in a case like me or you downloading files.
Unless you're hiding Osama Bin Laden in your basement. :compress:
Hey, check out this cool postcard from the 1950's...
