Judge tells Google it must hand over data By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Google will have to hand over details of users' internet searches to the United States government after a judge said the company must comply with a federal investigation.
After hearing arguments in a key battle over internet data privacy, the judge said he was inclined to force the company to hand over at least some of the records sought by the justice department.
The court clash followed the company's refusal to obey a subpoena demanding data on every search conducted on Google's site during a one-week period.
The government argued the information was vital for its bid to restore laws protecting children from online pornography that were struck down by the US Supreme Court.
Google refused, arguing that as well as jeopardising the privacy rights of internet users, the company's trade secrets were at risk because the government was seeking technical information to sort the research data.
Tuesday the US government scaled back the amount of data on Google's searches it sought.
James Ware, US District Court Judge for northern California, said the case was in essence about the government seeking the search data to test child-safe content filters and though "reticent" to decide on the relevance of the request, was inclined to give the government "some relief", but "not everything, no fishing allowed; a much smaller sample."
The judge did not say whether the data would include words that users enter into the search engine.
Copyright 2006 telegraph.co.uk