Is Google’s stand against the Department of Justice over? The AP reports that U.S. District Judge James Ware will order Google to give the DOJ at least some of the search data it seeks to ostensibly strengthen its arguments in a Pennsylvania porn case. The government wants a random sampling of 50,000 web addresses and 5,000 search requests from Big G. Although it’s not yet clear how much info Google will be asked to yield, none of it should be users’ personal data.
Statistics professor Philip Stark testified that the DOJ wants to prove how easy it is to circumvent filtering software meant to shield children from pornographic websites, and to that end it needs a sampling of queries previously entered into search engines. Yahoo!, MSN and AOL have already provided the DOJ with such information, and it’s not clear exactly how much Google’s reluctant contribution would help bolster the case.
Despite the fact that users’ data will be left untouched, privacy advocates are understandably concerned, saying that the ruling could help make more invasive information seizures simpler in the future – especially considering the scads of personal info search engines have at their fingertips. Law professor Paul Schiff Berman warns that “The erosion of privacy tends to happen incrementally,” and that a couple of decades of gradual steps might lead to a future where privacy is much less secure.
No word from Google yet on what course they intend to take, but we’re pretty sure we can rule out a perp walk; an appeal seems probable. They’ve certainly stuck to their guns this far. We’ll keep you up to date.
