Google battles government over porn investigation

Via Huffington Post ~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2006-01-19-google-search-records_x.htm

Posted 1/19/2006 11:56 AM     Updated 1/19/2006 10:41 PM

Google battles government over porn investigation
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Google (GOOG) on Thursday rebuffed the Bush administration's attempt in federal court to force it to hand over search-engine data on millions of customers.

The Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Jose on Wednesday for an order to turn over the records as part of the administration’s efforts to revive a controversial online pornography law. The issue is expected to be resolved by March.

Google has already refused to comply with a subpoena, issued in August, to turn over a mountain of material, including all requests entered into Google's search engine from any one-week period and 1 million randomly selected websites from Google databases.

Rival search engines Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN have cooperated with the government. But Google, the world's largest search engine, opposes releasing the information because it says that doing so would reveal trade secrets and that the information requested is not relevant to the government's case.

"Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and their demand for information overreaches," Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, told USA TODAY. "We intend to resist their motion vigorously." (Related: Read the full text of the government's latest motion)

Google facts:

380 million unique users per month
112 international domains
Top U.S. search site
Nearly half of all U.S. searches, 2.4 billion a month, go through Google
More than 50% of traffic is from outside the USA

Sources: Google, Nielsen/NetRatings

The government says the information is necessary to determine how often porn shows up in online searches, as part of a push to revive the Child Online Protection Act of 1998. That law would have required adults to register to view objectionable material online, and punished violators with fines up to $50,000 or jail.

A federal court in Philadelphia issued an injunction against the law in 1999, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional on free-speech grounds in 2004. The government is trying to prove in federal court in Philadelphia that the 1998 law is more effective than Internet filters in protecting kids from porn. Obtaining subpoenaed data from Google would help its claim, it said in Wednesday's filing.

The government subpoenaed material from other, unspecified search engines to develop what it calls a record of how often Web searches turn up material it says is "harmful to minors," according to a motion filed Wednesday in federal court in San Jose. The filing was first reported Thursday by the San Jose Mercury News.

Yahoo (YHOO), the No. 2 search engine, said it cooperated on a limited basis but did not provide any personal information. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue," Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako said.

Microsoft said it provided general data but did not disclose any private information of its customers.

Even if the government pries data from Google, it isn't likely to find what it wants, search-engine experts say. "One million random Web addresses doesn't tell you how many are porn or how many kids had access," says Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. He and others say filtering software better protects children than the 1998 law.

Privacy advocates worry that the government could gain access to intimate details about consumers. Internet service providers have often resisted providing customer information to law-enforcement officials, for privacy and competitive reasons.

"The government is asking Google — which has no connection to this online porn law — to do its dirty work," says Kurt Opsahl, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group. "And even if Google fights back this request, any attorney can write a subpoena and seek its vast records."

Google has no stated guidelines on how long it keeps data, leading critics to warn that retention could be for years because of inexpensive data-storage costs.
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Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.  

Comment: Maybe I am being a wee bit paranoid, but I wonder if fascist snoops aren’t trolling for terrorists not on its payroll. ~Peta
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