In a move that alleviates some privacy concerns, a U.S. federal judge granted part of a Justice Department request for Google search data but said users' search queries were off-limits.
The 21-page order (click here for PDF), issued last week in San Jose, Calif., by U.S. District Judge James Ware, represented little change from his stance at a hearing last week.
Ware had indicated he would grant the U.S. Justice Department access to a portion of Google's index of Web sites but said he was hesitant to ask for users' search terms because of worries about the "perception by the public that this is subject to government scrutiny" when they type search terms into Google.com.
Ware said in his order that the government demonstrated a "substantial need" for Google's random URL sample, which it plans to run through filtering software to test the software's antipornography filtering prowess as the DOJ prepares to defend a child-protection law in court. But the DOJ did not meet that standard regarding search queries, Ware said.
He noted that 50,000 URLs must be turned over, unless both parties agree to an alternative scenario on or before April 3.
Neither Google nor Justice Department representatives could be reached immediately for comment late last week.
Google associate general counsel Nicole Wong said in a post at the company's blog on Saturday that the search giant would comply "fully" with the judge's order. "What his ruling means is that neither the government nor anyone else has carte blanche when demanding data from Internet companies," she wrote, calling it "a clear victory for our users and for our company."
The decision drew cautious praise from a privacy advocate.
"It's a well-reasoned decision, and it does minimize privacy and civil liberties implications," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Givens went on to say that she still doesn't think the government needs Google's data: "They can design a research study that would accomplish much the same. It's a bad precedent for the government to be strong-arming search engine companies for such sensitive data."
A 'scaled-down' request
The Bush administration's request is part
of its campaign to defend the 1998 Child
Online Protection Act, which faces a court challenge from the American Civil
Liberties Union. That law restricts the posting on commercial Web sites of
sexually explicit material deemed "harmful to minors," unless it's made
unavailable to the youngsters. The ACLU argues that Web sites cannot
realistically comply with such requirements and that the law violates the right
to freedom of speech mandated by the First Amendment.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 stopped short of striking down COPA and instead decided that a full trial was needed to determine whether the law is constitutional. Those proceedings are scheduled to begin in Philadelphia in October.
Federal prosecutors said in court filings that Google's compliance with the DOJ subpoena is necessary to prove this fall that the 1998 law is "more effective than filtering software in protecting minors from exposure to harmful materials on the Internet."
The case against Google began Jan. 18, when the Justice Department asked Ware to order the company to comply with a subpoena issued last August. The subpoena
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