Google forced to hand over data
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...5/ixworld.html

Judge tells Google it must hand over data
By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
(Filed: 15/03/2006)

Google will have to hand over details of users' internet searches to the United States government after a judge said the company must comply with a federal investigation.


So tough fucking shit on google - who the fuck do they think they are telling the US government what they can and cant do????

:321GFY to you google.

:1orglaugh

i think its stupid they have too

That article is misleading and erroneous.

Here's the correct story:

A federal judge denied a U.S. government request that Google Inc. be ordered to hand over a sample of keywords customers use to search the Internet, but required on Friday that the company produce some Web addresses indexed in its system.

In a 21-page ruling, Judge James Ware of the U.S. District for the Northern District of California said the privacy considerations of Google users led him to deny part of the Justice Department's request.

"To the extent the motion seeks an order compelling Google to disclose search queries of its users the motion is denied," Ware wrote.

During a court hearing on Tuesday the government reduced the number of Google searches it wanted data on to just 50,000 Web addresses and roughly 5,000 search terms from the millions or potentially billions of addresses it had initially sought.

"The court grants the government's motion to compel only as to the sample of 50,000 URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), from Google's search index," the judge ruled, referring to the searchable catalog of documents that form the core of Google's Web search service, the most widely used in the world.

"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 Web site. The full comment is at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.

Ware ruled that the 50,000 Web addresses, or URLs, were a relevant request by the government, which wants the data for a statistical study it is doing to show the effectiveness of filtering software at issue in a separate case -- ACLU v. Gonzales -- that concerns a federal law on online child pornography.

"The expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable, but may nonetheless have an appreciable impact on the way in which Google is perceived, and consequently the frequency with which users use Google," Ware wrote.

"This concern, combined with the prevalence of Internet searches for sexually explicit material ... gives this court pause as to whether the search queries themselves may constitute potentially sensitive information," he said.

In his decision, Judge Ware wrote of the "three vital interests" that needed to be weighed in the case: national interest, proprietary business information and privacy concerns.

"This Court is particularly concerned any time enforcement of a subpoena imposes an economic burden on a non-party," he wrote in a filing made at the close of business of Friday.

Classic book

It's ok, in another 15 years Google with completely control the government.

Google Rocks.

Yeh really.. who do they think they are? ... The Bush admin is the only outfit that can refuse to turn over documents ordered by the justice dept..

Google shouldn't have to hand over data that government agents will probably interpret erroneously anyways, but let's not forget that to enter the Chinese market, google accepted to hire Chinese government censors, so it is a little hypocritical for them to deny requests from the US government but agree to requests from the Chinese government :2 cents:

lol @ google control the government.

Yup it was a good one :thumbsup

It's not just the gov. getting the stuff from google people.

This crap is happening every day. They are ever so slowly taking away our privacy. Eventually people will wake up and it will be too late.

First they wanted info from the airlines, then they simple broke the law with the nsa spying, then info from msm,yahoo, and aol, now google. They already mine info from your purchases with your debit and credit cards.They watch what you check out from the library.The media is basically a pipeline for the administration. They are already talking about a national ID card.

We look more and more like the old soviets.

I never thought I would see this in my country.