Google plan to do a special aerial photographic survey of Sydney this Friday morning. The survey will add higher resolution images to Google Maps and Google Earth. Weather permitting, a small aircraft painted in Google colors and loaded with photographic gear will criss-cross Sydney at low altitude (600m), documenting the Sydney Harbour and basin area.

Google owns Blogger, the wildly popular no-cost blog publishing system. Blogger has a Terms of Service agreement, to which users must agree when signing up to use the service:

12. MEMBER CONDUCT Member is solely responsible for the contents of his or her transmissions through the Service. Member’s use of the Service is subject to all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations.

[…]

Member agrees not to transmit through the Service any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, or harmful material of any kind or nature. Member further agrees not to transmit any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation. Attempts to gain unauthorized access to other computer systems are prohibited.

[…]

Pyra may, at its sole discretion, immediately terminate Service should Member’s conduct fail to conform with these terms and conditions of the BTS.

The actual fact is that Google/Blogger flatly refuse to address content violations. In response to a complaint about http://antifightdemback.blogspot.com which makes the claim:

Anti FDB is dedicated to exposing the lies told by Fight Dem Back!,a redundant internet hate-group based in Australia. Run by registered sex offender MATTHEW HENDERSON-HAU a.k.a DARP HAU, Fight Dem Back! publishes names of people it deems “racist”.

Of course, Mat Henderson isn’t a sex offender, registered or otherwise. You may recall an item run last October in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding some other TOS violating blogspot blogs. Those blogs are still there, by the way.

In all content complaints, Blogger Support responds with the same pro-forma nonsense:

“Blogger Help” wrote:

Hello,

Thank you for writing regarding content posted on antifightdemback.blogspot.com. We would like to confirm that we have received and reviewed your inquiry dated January 18, 2007.

Blogger.com and Blogspot.com are US sites regulated by US law. Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these pages. Given these facts, and pursuant with section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, Blogger does not remove allegedly defamatory material from Blogger.com or Blogspot.com. If a contact email address is listed on the blog, we recommend you working directly with the author to have the content in question removed or changed.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Sincerely? Kidding, right?

In fine Freewayblogger fashion, Sydney residents could put up one or two messages to be included in the Google aerial survey.

Please use your roof or your local park to send a message to Google to stop harbouring racists and enforce the Blogger TOS.

-weez