I mentioned that a controversial blog that is causing an uproar in New Zealand had incurred the wrath of Children, Youth and Family Services.

So much so the Chief Executive of Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand, Head of CYFS New Zealand, Peter Hughes popped his cork in the media yesterday.

…”do whatever is necessary to get rid of this website”.

“We will be working 24/7 until that is done,” he said.

Now his department lawyers are approaching Google, who owns Blogger, which the blog CYFSWATCH is hosted on.

Government lawyers have gone to the internet giant Google in their bid to shut down a website that “names and shames” Child, Youth and Family Services social workers.  Auckland lawyer Andrew Tetzlaff, who has acted in the past for a Google subsidiary, confirmed yesterday that Ministry of Social Development lawyers had contacted him because the site had been set up using Google’s Blogger technology.

He said he had no continuing involvement with the company and had simply passed on the ministry’s messages to a Google contact in the United States.

A poll on TVNZ indicates 3/4 of the respondents do not want this blog shut down. This legal action will probably cost the government thousands of dollars paying it’s lawyers.

With Hughes making a public threat, the issues discussed on the blog have become secondary to the right of the blog to be online.

Here is what Google has said in the past. Duncan Riley, who started The Blog Herald out of Australia has been a tireless crusader against spam or what are commonly known as ’splogs’. (spam blogs)

This is a response to Riley’s query from Google in 2005.

Thank you for writing regarding content posted on blogspot.com. Although we host that site, we are not in a position to adjudicate whether the content is defamatory or not.

Accordingly, consistent with section 230(c) of the Communications Decency
Act, Blogger does not remove material in response to allegations of
defamation. In cases where a contact email address is listed on the page,
we recommend working directly with the author to have this information
removed or changed.

We are sorry we cannot assist you further at this time.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support Team

As I understand it, Google has no dog in this fight, they are a private company. This request has to be filed in a US court. If there are legal proceedings the judge can order the site shut down while they occur. But I don’t see why Google would fight the request, given there is no international law that serves their interest. Seems to me this particular issue about this website is now in the hands of the people of New Zealand.

A prior case with Brazil.