Google Forced to Hand Over Data to US Justice Department
Google Forced to Hand Over Data to US Justice Department
Google and the US Justice Department appear to have reached a compromise over the amount of data the Government is ordering Google to supply it as it tries to defend the Child Online Protection Act. At a hearing yesterday in San Jose , US Federal Judge, James Ware ordered Google to turn over substantially less information than was originally requested. The Government is now asking for a sample of 500,000 website URLs, down from 1 million, and only 5,000 search queries, down from the 1 billion + that could come from a week of queries the Government originally demanded. "It is my intent to grant some relief to the government," Judge Ware said, "given the narrowing that has taken place with the request and its willingness to compensate Google for whatever burden that imposes." Changes to the original request were found in a footnote of a court declaration written by Philip Stark, the statistician hired by the Justice Department to study data supplied by the search engines. Google resisted the Government request citing user privacy and protection of trade secrets. The reduced information request appears to have met the needs of Google's attorneys. "99.99 percent of Google is unexposed, and this teeny sliver will tell them nothing.", Google lawyer Albert Gidari told the New York Times in an interview. by Jim Hedger, News Editor |