X-SciTech

Google Fights Back

By Melissa McNamara

January 24, 2006 / 2:30 PM EST / CBS

The Bush administration subpoenaed Google Inc. last week, seeking details on Google users' searches. Court papers say the government wants the data – including a request for one million Web addresses – in an effort to restore online child protection laws, which the Supreme Court struck down two years ago.

"We are trying to gather up information in order to help the enforcement of a federal law to ensure the protection, quite frankly, of our nation's children against pornography," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday.

Unlike other search engines, Google has refused to comply. "Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches," says Nicole Wang, associate general counsel at Google. "We had lengthy discussions with them to try to resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."

Google is not the only one objecting. Privacy advocates' ire was sparked by the mention of personal data getting into public hands. Their outrage is pointed both at Google for storing personal records and at the government for requesting them. Lost from public debate is whether to shield minors from online pornography.

In fact, if countering pornography is the government's intent, some question their methods. "The real question, is ... what are the best ways to keep kids away from porn," says CBSNews.com Technology Analyst Larry Magid. "I don't see how Google's data will help answer that question."

What's really at stake is an age old issue: How far should the government go to probe Americans at home?

Google's subpoena comes on the heels of President Bush's disclosure that he ordered the NSA to conduct warrantless domestic eavesdropping, and a lengthy debate in Congress over whether to extend the Patriot Act. In some ways, the debate over search engines' records is simply an extension of the debate over whether the Justice Department can seize library records under the Patriot Act.

It's a slippery slope, some privacy advocates say. "What is stopping the government from turning these requests for information into a general criminal investigation?" asks Chris Hoofnagle, director and senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

But rather than place all the blame on the government, Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum, says companies should not store "this honeypot of data." Most search engines store some information to maintain a competitive advantage.

"The search engines collect too much information… If they all didn't have logs, then this subpoena wouldn't be nearly as frightening," Dixon says. "We're all concerned about the second shoe dropping."

But Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and Privacilla.org editor, says "Google should be allowed to store this information. It would be devastating to their productivity, the services they offer and future innovations if they didn't." But, Harper says "they should pledge to destroy personally identifiable information after some period of time."

"We need to start having some precedents and maybe this case will give us that, about what is the appropriate search under the fourth amendment,"says law professor John Soma, executive director of Privacy Foundation.

"Like it or not, we all live in a fish bowl," CBSNews.com's Magid says.

It's not a point lost on bloggers. Technology Bytes blogs, "Before we go any further, let me say that every time we access the Internet, be it search engines or any other website, we are actually giving some of our information to them."

Amidst all the debate, what remains clear is these questions are unlikely to go away any time soon. "This case arises out of the government effort to protect children," says Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "But there will be other cases involving other crimes, or national security, or copyright infringement, or other matters."