Google Inc. has formally rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s subpoena of data from the Web search leader, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users’ Web searches and its own trade secrets.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company delivered its indignant critique in a 25-page brief that marked its initial legal response to the U.S. Justice Department’s attempt to force the online search engine leader to comply with a 6-month-old subpoena.
Responding to a motion by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose Web search data was impractical.
The Bush administration is seeking to compel Google to hand over Web search data as part of a bid by the Justice Department to appeal a 2004 Supreme Court injunction of a law to penalize Web site operators who allow children to view pornography.
The government believes the search requests will help prove that Internet filters are not strong enough to prevent children from accessing online pornography and other potentially offensive Web sites.
The Justice Department has until Feb. 24 to respond to the papers that Google filed. A hearing for oral arguments is scheduled March 13 before U.S. District Judge James Ware in San Jose, Calif.
Google is going it alone in opposing the U.S. government request. Rivals Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Inc.’s MSN and Time Warner Inc.’s American Online already have provided some of the search engine information sought by the Justice Department. All three companies say they complied without relinquishing their users’ private information.
Google’s lawyers said the company shares the government’s concern with materials harmful to minors but argued that the request for its data was irrelevant. They offered a series of technical arguments why this data was not useful.
The Mountain View, California-based company said that complying with the U.S. government’s request for "untold millions of search queries" would put an undue burden on the company, including a "week of engineer time to complete."
"Algorithms regularly change. The identical search query submitted today may yield a different result than the identical search conducted yesterday," attorneys from Perkins Coie LLP, the company’s external legal counsel, argue in the filing.
Complying with the Justice Department request would also force Google to reveal how its Web search technology works — something it jealously guards as a trade secret, the company argued. It refuses to disclose even the total number of searches conducted each day.
Google’s resistance contrasts with a deal the company has struck with the Chinese government to censor some searches on a new site in China, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from members of the U.S. Congress and human rights activists.
"Google users trust that when they enter a search query into a Google search box … that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason," attorneys for Google said in the filing.
But Google has steadfastly refused to hand over the requested information, a defiant stance that the company reaffirmed in a brief that depicts the Bush administration as heavy-handed snoops and technological rubes.
Although the Justice Department says it does not want any of the personal information, Google contends its cooperation would set off privacy alarms and scare away some of the traffic that has driven its success.
The legal spat also comes amid heightened sensitivity to privacy issues by the company as it recently began offering a new version of its Google Desktop service that vacuums up data stored on user PCs and makes it accessible on the users’ other computers. For customers who consent to the service, copies of their data are stored on Google’s central computers.
Privacy activists have rallied to the defense of Google for fighting the U.S. government request while some conservative and religious organizations have criticized the company for failing to help the government combat child pornography.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is opposing the Bush administration’s effort to revive the online child protection law, also filed a brief alongside in support of Google.
If users believe that the text of their search queries into Google’s search engine may become public knowledge, it only logically follows that they will be less likely to use the service, Google’s lawyers wrote.
This subpoena is the latest example of government overreaching, in which the government apparently believes it can demand that private entities turn over all sorts of information about their customers just because the government asserts that it needs the information, the ACLU’s lawyers wrote.
Google also said it doubts the government would be available to shield the requested information from public scrutiny. The company maintains the data sought by the government could provide its rivals and Web site operators with valuable insights about how its search engine works.
The government must show that this request is the most relevant way to accomplish its goal, said Perry Aftab, an attorney, privacy activist and executive director of WiredSafety.org, a popular online child safety site.
Why would Google or anyone else turn over data that might create further risks for their customers? The public policy gains do not outweigh the risks, she said.
As it battles the Justice Department, Google is cooperating with China’s Communist government by censoring some of the search results that the company produces in a country that restricts free speech.
That odd juxtaposition has caused civil rights activists to applaud Google for defying the U.S. government while the champions of human rights and free speech jeer the company for bending to China’s will.
The case has attracted widespread attention because the Justice Department’s demand to peek under the hood of the Internet’s most popular search engine has underscored the potential for online databases becoming tools for government surveillance.