In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.
The Mountain View-based search and advertising giant opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.
Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government’s effort “vigorously.”
“Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,” Wong said.
The case worries privacy advocates, given the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users.
The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court.
(below: How to avoid Google’s tracking)
Tip from Good Morning Silicon Valley
If you don’t regularly anonymize your Google cookie and purge your personalized search history, now might be a good time to start (then again, in this day and age, why bother?). The Department of Justice on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year for search records stored in its databases. The DOJ argues that the information it has requested, which includes one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from a one-week period, is essential to its upcoming defense of the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act (think of the children!)
Glad you diaried this! Caught it earlier and wasn’t sure I understood enough about the subject to be able to! Reccommended!
Several terrorism cases and subsequent pleas obtained are based on not much more than Google searches. Iyman Faris did some searches for the Brooklyn Bridge lunacy plan as well as some suggestion of using ultralight gliders as escape vehicles.
This likely a way to see who in the admin circles that have been involved in that are at risk to being exposed again. The govt could easily secure a conviction based on searches with certain keywords and files uploaded to a user’s computer remotely, without the user’s knowledge. How’s that for justice…the govt sets up a trojan to redirect traffic from various servers to porn sites and then prosecutes the victim for that traffic.
It’s no wonder the CIA started their venture capital technology branches. They made some keystroke logger trojans that were a pain to get rid of too.
hahaha!
trouble is, none of the red staters will admit to enjoying porn, so they wont’ raise a fuss!
Here at the Sam Goody in Enterprise Bumfuck Alabama you can get all sorts of porn. They cover the front photo but they are right out there where the kids can all spot that it is PORN. Don’t go in with your teenager though and ask for the latest Green Day CD though cuz they never heard of it. Sometimes I just hate this hypocritical fuckedup town! I have never lived in such a small place either that had so many fricken strip clubs. They put them outside of town but Christ…….there’s three of them! Even in a town the size of Colorado Springs there is only four strip clubs! Church on Sunday and pervert Monday thru Saturday!
Are we surprised? I’m not. The Cabal of Fascists in the White House will continue to break the law at every turn when they are after something. They will do whatever it takes, including trampling all over our right of privacy as long as they can get away with it.
At least Conyers is holding a hearing live right now in the basement of the capitol(again) about the NSA illegal wiretapping.
Love your sig!