Posted on 02/28/2006 1:02:48 PM PST by EvilHomer
The Justice Department will take Google to court on March 13 in San Jose, California, in response to Google’s repeated refusal to comply with federal subpoenas demanding information regarding the search engine’s database, specifically information related to searches conducted using the engine and the web sites available to Google’s users.
Google is the largest search engine in the world, and the only one that has not cooperated with the Justice Department so far. Google claims these demands are a violation of privacy, but the government has assured them that no individuals would be identified by name, only their searches would be handed over.
For Google, the issue may be one of principle. The information, if obtained by the federal government, would be used to bolster support for the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a law which was passed in 1998 but was stalled with legal challenges. In 2004 it was sent back to a court of appeals for a trial based on its technical merit, and has been there ever since.
COPA was designed to protect children from viewing sexually explicit material online, but privacy advocates fear that such regulations could be used by the government for more than their stated purposes.
For almost 2 years the Justice Department has been fighting for COPA, and this is the most recent battleground. As the largest and most successful search engine, it would certainly set a precedent favorable to search engines like Google if the Justice Department could be defeated in a court of law. Likewise, if Google were defeated the case could be used by future governments to subpoena more than just anonymous search data.
I am sorry if I put words in your mouth.
You do read other posts?
Amen!
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