They are used by thousands of people, especially to know the most popular topics. But New Zealanders will have to ignore Google Trends alerts for some time. Following a misstep and a face-to-face of the American giant with the elected officials, the service is suspended in the country.
This suspension follows the public broadcast, via automatic emails generated by Google Trends, the name of an individual suspected of murder.
A name made public
Let's take the facts in chronological order. On December 2, Grace Millane, a British student on vacation in Auckland, is kidnapped and murdered. Six days later, a 26-year-old man is arrested: he is considered the main suspect. The case had made a lot of noise on the international scene.
This may explain why it was mentioned in automatically generated emails, sent by Google Trends to thousands of users. But while the New Zealand justice had granted anonymity to the suspect, the emails received specified his identity.
It followed, for months, a standoff between Google and the New Zealand government. Andrew Little, the Minister of Justice, has released a message from Google, simply calling the incident " relatively unique, in a high-profile case [...] extensively handled by the foreign press ." The American giant acknowledges an error but makes no changes to its service. According to him, fewer than 200 users would have received the e-mail indiscreet.
Google takes a step back
For Andrew Little, this statement is tantamount to " giving a finger to New Zealand justice and the family of Grace Millane, " threatening to pressure the American giant, by international agreements or for the path of justice.
In response, Google suspended the Google Trends service, recognizing miscommunication and calling the debate a " misunderstanding ." " We understand the right to a fair trial and recognize that this is a fundamental part of the justice system. We understand that there is sensitivity around this incident, and we have suspended Google Trends emails in New Zealand ". Andrew Little called the decision " welcome ".
No date for reinstatement of alerts service has been reported for New Zealand. The situation between the country and the vast Internet is becoming tense, especially since the terrorist attack on Christchurch. Last March, a white supremacist left 51 dead and filmed his act to broadcast on social networks. A week later, Premier Jacinda Ardern received death threats from these same networks. The woman met with President Emmanuel Macron in May, which resulted in a commitment to control " terrorist or violent extremist online content".
That said, Andrew Little wants to stay open to network giants: " I continue to seek constructive engagement with Google and other high-tech multinationals for long-term solutions," he says.
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