Updated: A federal judge orders the search engine to let the U.S. Department of Justice see a selection of its Web sites, but not the search terms the government also requested.A judge has ordered
Google to allow the U.S. government to examine a miniscule snippet of its stockpile of indexed Web sites, in a decision which may have a big effect on Internet search.
U.S. District Court Judge James Ware on March 17 gave Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., until April 3 to hand over a randomly generated selection of about 50,000 Web sites that could be included in its search results.
The government plans to use the sites as raw material to test Internet filters.
Ware did not grant the government's additional request for a random sampling of 5,000 of search terms that Google consumers entered.
Ware wrote in the 21-page order that he was persuaded by the government's decision to significantly reduce the amount of data it wanted from Google. At one point, the department had requested what amounted to access to billions of Web sites, and millions of search key words.
"The Court's concerns … have been mitigated by the reduced scope [of] the government's present request," Ware wrote.
The ruling serves to further sort out the balance between the duties of law enforcement and a search engine's right to protect trade secrets and customer privacy, he wrote.
Ware's decision, some legal experts said, makes it easier for government entities to monitor America's search habits. Privacy rights advocates are disturbed because of the personal details an Internet search session usually reveals.
Whether will Google appeal Ware's decision is unknown. Some experts said they believe it will. But Google attorney Albert Gidari seemed satisfied with many elements of the decision that Ware revealed earlier the week of March 13 at a court hearing in San Jose, Calif.
A Google spokesperson said, "This is a clear victory for our users. The subpoena has been drastically limited; most importantly, the order excludes search queries." A U.S. Department of Justice official couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed the issue of surrendering search information to the government, among other topics, during a recent interview. Click here to read more.
Reaction to Ware's decision is mixed. But a majority of those reached for comment said it's a stepping stone for even larger and more far-reaching requests by the government and others for search engine customer data.
Judge Ware seems to have dodged that question for now. His ruling, he wrote, does not address "concerns articulated about the appropriateness of the government's use of court's subpoena power to gather and collect information about what individuals search the Internet for."
But some said they believe search engines may ultimately have to rewrite their privacy policies as a result.
Another question raised is how long Internet search engines can truly protect customers from "government snooping," said Andrew W. Klungness, an Internet and e-commerce law specialist at the law firm Bryan Cave, based in Los Angeles.
As for search consumers, the case has made clear that there is a permanent record of their online activity held by companies that may or may not have their best interests at heart, and some once-freewheeling searchers now plan to limit themselves.
"I wonder how many people might draw the analogy between the DOJ's and the Chinese government's efforts to control, monitor or know what you are doing on the internet?" wrote an eWEEK.com reader, screen-named MPBishton. "Congress censured one of them. Will they censure the other?"
"These companies don't even care about their own privacy, why should they care about their users," wrote another eWEEK.com reader, screen-named Cbaap.
In his comments from the bench a few days ago, Justice Ware spoke of trying to fight this very perception that search terms are "all subject to government scrutiny."
Ware's decision ends a few acrimonious months of litigation that helped expose a deep rift separating Google from the government and Google's competitors.
Originally, the Department of Justice asked leading search engines Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, and America Online's AOL for several months' worth of key words and search results. Google refused, prompting the court action.
But the other three complied, stating that they could do so and still protect their customers' privacy.
A furor erupted over whether the search engines had violated their users' privacy after news broke of the requests. Aside from sparking a loud public debate, the issue also gave rise to a proposed law that seeks to solve the problem by forcing search engines to periodically erase some forms of customer data.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to include more details from the ruling.
