In August
2005, Google was served
with a subpoena from the U.
S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
demanding disclosure of two
full months’ worth of search
queries that Google received
from its users, as well as
all the URLs in
Google’s index. Google
objected to the subpoena,
which started a set of legal
procedures that put the
issue before the Federal
courts (see:
1984 is now! Google fights
US Government). Google's response to
the Department of Justice's
motion to the court to force
the search engine to comply
with the subpoena, can be
found
here.
The ACLU urged the U.S.
District Court for the
Northern District of
California to rule in favor
of Google’s effort to block
the government’s subpoena
for information about its
customers’ online behavior.
“The government is not
entitled to go on a fishing
expedition through millions
of Google searches any time
it wants, just because it
claims that it needs that
information,” said ACLU
staff attorney Aden Fine.
“Anyone asking a court to
approve such an intrusive,
burdensome request must
explain why the information
is needed and for what
purpose. The government has
refused to make its purpose
known to the public or to
the Court, and Google has
rightly denied the
government’s demand for this
information.” See
Plaintiffs' Response to
Motion to Compel Google
In a declaration the Justice
Department rejected Google's
privacy concerns, noting
that the government
specifically requested that
Google remove any
identifying information from
the search requests. The
paper also stated that the
nature and depth of the
requested information would
do little to threaten
Google's closely guarded
trade secrets. Nonetheless,
government attorneys greatly
reduced the scope of their
request to only 50,000 Web
addresses and 5,000 search
terms.
After 90 minutes
spent hearing the DOJ and Google arguments on March 12, Judge Ware said, “It is
my intent to grant some relief to the government.” And so he did a few days
later: According to the ruling Google has to hand over 50,000 Web addresses
from its search index, but has not to reveal terms its
users had been searching for. In a
21-page ruling, Judge James Ware said the privacy
considerations of Google users led him to deny part of
the Justice Department's request.
"What his ruling means is that
neither the Government nor anyone else has carte blanche
when demanding data from internet companies," Nicole
Wong, Google's associate general counsel, said in a
statement on the company's website. The full comment is
at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.
March 19, 2006:
Ruling in Google case a win
for privacy?, CNet:
"A federal judge's ruling Friday afternoon that Google
has to give the U.S. government a limited amount of
information it's seeking--but not search queries--was
immediately heralded by many bloggers as a victory not
just for the search giant, but for overall privacy
rights."
March 18, 2006:
Google Ordered to Submit Data for Child Pornography
Study, New York Times: "As expected, a federal judge ruled on
Friday that Google, the Internet search engine, must
turn over some search data including 50,000 Web
addresses to the government for a study of child
pornography online."
March 18, 2006:
Judge: Google must give feds limited access to records,
CNet: "In a move that alleviates some privacy concerns, a
federal judge granted part of a Justice Department
request for Google search data but said users' search
queries were off-limits."
March 18, 2006:
Gericht: Google muss keine Benutzerdaten aushändigen,
Heise: "Richter James Ware vom US-Bezirksgericht in San Jose hat entschieden:
Google muss dem Justizministerium eine Zufallsstichprobe von 50.000 im
Volltextindex der Suchmaschinen verzeichneten Adressen aushändigen."
March 15, 2006: Rötzer,
Florian,
Keiner gewinnt, der Datenschutz verliert, Telepolis: "Im Prozess, bei dem das US-Justizministerium Daten von Google fordert, hat
sich der Richter für einen schlechten Kompromiss entschieden."
March 15, 2006:
US-Regierung schränkt Datenanforderung an Google ein,
Heise: "Richter James Ware vom US-Bezirksgericht in San Jose hat gestern nach einer
anderthalbstündigen ersten Anhörung im Verfahren US-Justizministerium gegen
Google angedeutet, er werde die Herausgabe von einigen
Suchanfragendatensätzen anordnen."
A
study conducted by the
University of Connecticut
showed that "only 13% of the
public feel “extremely” or
“very” confident that the
search behavior collected by
Internet companies will
remain private."
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