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GOOGLE Has Hit Back at the US Department of Justice

Posted on: Monday, 20 February 2006, 09:00 CST

By Tony Glover

GOOGLE has hit back at the US Department of Justice demands for disclosure of two months worth of search queries from its customers.

In a 21-page response released in the US on Friday night, Google said giving in to the US governments demand for the disclosure of untold millions of search queries submitted by Google users would undermine the trust Google users have that when they enter a search query into a Google search box, not only will they receive back the most relevant results, but that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate.

But despite Googles stance in defence of liberty, much of the document deals with protecting Googles bottom-line rather than its users rights. Google says that revealing even a weeks worth of query data could injure Googles competitive position.

An analysis of Googles query data would reveal proprietary information such as the number of queries that Google can or does process, its capabilities of processing certain lengths and types of queries, its market share in the US and other countries, and even the demographics of its users, said Google.

Google, founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, fears that disclosure will open a floodgate of competition in an overcrowded market.

Competition with Google is fierce, said Googles report. It says it takes extraordinary measures to protect its trade secrets and confidential commercial information and that the government is compelling it to disclose valuable trade secrets and highly confidential information.

Google is also concerned that a court case could expose its intellectual property to cross-examination in open court and expert witnesses in the form of search engine

consultants who might be employed by Google competitors.

The US government believes knowledge of the searches would help it defend the Online Child Protection Act, which was intended to prevent young people from accessing pornographic websites. The law has never been used because it was was blocked by the courts.

Googles stance comes in the wake of criticism that it caved in to Chinese demands for online censorship. Google called the Bush administrations reasons for disclosure so uninformed as to be nonsensical.

Source: Sunday Business; London (UK)

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