Google defends child porn tip-offs to police

Google defended Monday its policy of electronically monitoring its users' content for child sexual abuse after it tipped off police in Texas to a child pornography suspect.
      
Houston restaurant worker John Henry Skillern, 41, was arrested Thursday following a cyber-tip that Google had passed along via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), based outside Washington.
      
"He was trying to get around getting caught, he was trying to keep it inside his email," said detective David Nettles of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.
      
"I can't see that information, I can't see that photo -- but Google can," he told Houston television station KHOU, which first reported the story.
      
It's common knowledge that the world's leading Internet service, like its rivals, tracks users' online behavior in order to fine-tune its advertising services.
      
But the Texas case prompted concerns about the degree to which Google might be giving information about its users' conduct to law enforcement agencies.
      
"The story seems like a simple one with a happy outcome -- a bad man did a crime and got caught," blogged John Hawes, chief of operations at Virus Bulletin, a cyber security consultancy.
      
"However, there will of course be some who see it as yet another sign of how the twin Big Brothers of state agencies and corporate behemoths have nothing better to do than delve into the private lives of all and sundry, looking for dirt," he said.
      
In an email to AFP, a Google spokesperson said Monday: "Sadly, all Internet companies have to deal with child sexual abuse.
      
"It's why Google...