Google Inc. won a partial victory in a battle with the government when a federal judge ruled yesterday that the company didn’t have to turn over customer search queries to the U.S. Justice Department.
U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California, refused to make Google, the most-used Internet search engine, give the agency 5,000 search queries as part of an effort to defend a law aimed at keeping children from accessing Internet pornography. Ware did rule Google had to comply with the U.S. demand for 50,000 Web addresses from its index of Web sites. New from Bloomberg.com and The New York Times.
What wasn’t mentioned…
Is that Yahoo, MSN, (and Ask Jeeves?) all violated their privacy terms, and caved to the government without a fight, and gave them all they asked for.
Unless you can proved that your query was in the stuff they allowed the government to get however, you can’t bring a case against them.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Re:What wasn’t mentioned…
And you won’t be allowed to examine the material the gubmint gets to prove your query was in there. The gubmint will say that it has to be kept secret as part of some law enforcement operation.
I’d bet my site would come under fire from an active CIPA; it doesn’t contain pornography, but I do discuss it and in opposition to the reactionism against it.
Re:What wasn’t mentioned…
Oops. That should be COPA, not CIPA. It’s getting so’s you can’t tell one wing-nut reaction from another without a program.
I dunno about that…
If it was requested in court, unless they slap a secrecy sticker on it, you should be able to get it. ALSO, you know *where* they got it, so you could ask the courts to get it from Google. And I don’t think they can yet take away privately generated info and slap secrecy stickers on it, ie: prevent Google from having and keeping their own information. If Google has the information, and the courts have made them give it up, the courts can make them give it up again. And, of course, Google could choose to give it up freely – if they’re hating the way the government is playing.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL