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Google refuses White House search request
| quote: | Google refuses White House search request
Simon Jeffery and agencies
Sunday January 22, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Google is resisting a White House subpoena to hand over the records of the searches internet users are asking it to perform, it has emerged.
The request was first made last summer, but when California-based Google refused to comply, the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, lodged papers with a federal judge in San Jose to enforce the order.
The White House argues that a list of all requests entered into its search engine over a single week - which could span tens of millions of queries - will help it build up a profile of internet use it needs to defend an online pornography law.
It also wants a million randomly selected addresses from the index of websites that Google searches.
The papers said Google's search record "would assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current web users [and] to estimate how often web users encounter harmful-to-minors material in the course of their searches".
The Bush administration insists it does not want to tie the search requests to the person or computer that made them but the subpoena has nevertheless raised serious privacy concerns.
Ashok Ramani, Google's lawyer, replied in a letter to the White House that the internet giant - whose corporate motto is "Don't be evil" - would not hand over its records.
"Google's acceding to the request would suggest that it is willing to reveal information about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept."
He added that the subpoena also threatened to expose some of Google's "crown-jewel trade secrets". Google is concerned that its requests could be used to deduce the size of its index and how many computers it uses. "This information would be highly valuable to competitors or miscreants seeking to harm Google's business," Mr Ramani wrote.
Google's main competitors have complied with the White House subpoena, according to the court papers. A spokeswoman for Yahoo!, the second-placed search engine, said it did not consider the request "a privacy issue" while MSN refused to comment on the White House request. A statement merely said it worked "closely with law enforcement officials worldwide to assist them when requested". Google is one of the fastest growing companies of all time and its booming advertising revenues turned a third-quarter profit of £215m in 2005. The company's strength as an advertiser is that it knows what people want because they tell them every time they use it.
As the world's dominant search engine, Google has built up valuable records of the wants of internet users.
Pam Dixon, the executive director of the World Privacy Forum, told the Associated Press that Google was right to resist the requests.
"This is exactly the kind of thing we have been worrying about with search engines for some time. Google should be commended for fighting this."
She said she hoped the case would remind people to be careful when they used search engines. "When you are looking at that blank search box, you should remember that what you fill can come back to haunt you unless you take precautions," she said.
Privacy concerns in the US have been magnified by recent revelations that the White House authorised eavesdropping on civilian communications after 9/11 attacks without obtaining court approval.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1691273,00.html
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Meanwhile Americans are still being spied on and two democrat senators will vote no to Alito because they say he will be used to give the President even more power.
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