One of the more interesting implications of discovering sites that are housing stolen personal data is that eventually Google and other search engines discover that data as well.
According to Finjan CTO Yuval Ben-Itzhak not only are the number of crimeware sites on the Web multiplying, the stolen data on these sites is starting to be indexed by Google.
In their latest security bulletin Finjan goes into great detail about how and why this is happening, but it also brings up an interesting ethical question.
If Google is essentially indexing stolen data on its servers is it not in possession of what amounts to stolen goods. And because it is making that stolen data more widely available is it essentially aiding and abetting a criminal act?
Google will naturally claim that it service is essentially a dumb set of algorithms that index data. As such, it bears no responsibility for what data is actually put out on the Web for people to consume.
But possession is usually considered to be nine-tenths of the law. If a pawnbroker is found to be in possession of stolen goods then he's liable to criminal proceedings. If a publisher distributes work from an author that turns out to be the property of another author they are usually held liable alongside the author that violated the original copyright.
Larger legal minds will eventually have to sit down and wrestle with these issues. But as a company the professes to be all about doing good the question some folks at Google might start asking themselves is how to stop indexing sites that possess stolen data in the first place.