Tech, Public Interest Groups Ask Attorney General Hood to Stop Action Against Google

Tech groups and public interest groups urged Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood to forgo subpoenas and legal action aimed at determining whether Google profits from ad sales linked to drug sales, piracy and other illegal acts offered online. The enforcement tools that Hood is seeking “would harm free expression and Internet security,” said Erik Stallman, general counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology. They also would threaten the successful legal framework “that has made America the leader of the Internet economy,” he said in a blog post. Hood’s letters to Google and the subpoena “ignore this legal framework, and federal preemption in the area of copyright, entirely,” Stallman said. Instead, they seek to give attorneys general and rightsholders “the authority to curate and control web content and especially search results,” he said. Google filed a lawsuit last week against Hood claiming that he tried to censor the Internet by filing a subpoena (see 1412190045). The letter was signed by 13 organizations, including CDT, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press.