Using Google to make community standards transparent and objective

This New York Times article, "What's Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer" is pretty interesting, and makes sense at some level:

"Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards?" (from "What's Obcene?")

and then:

"In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought." (from "What's Obcene?)

Read the whole article, it's quite interesting. Do you think this is a reasonable judicial approach?

Originally posted on Jun 25, 2008. Reprinted courtesy of ReRuns plug-in.