Google achieves mini-victory against US government

[Steve]

Google has gotten away without giving up thousands of search terms to the US Government, but a judge has ruled that they must provide 50,000 web addresses for a statistical study. The government's demands were, they claim, to prevent access to child pornography. However, many had fears over privacy.

The ruling will reassure some that a company, or indeed a government, cannot simply demand data from a firm like Google. However, this case will have brought to light the question of just how anonymous a service like Google really is.

Earlier, the government had reduced its request to just 50,000 web addresses and roughly 5,000 search terms from the millions or potentially billions of addresses it had initially sought.

"The expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable," Judge Ware wrote, "but may nonetheless have an appreciable impact on the way in which Google is perceived, and consequently the frequency with which users use Google."

[BBC News]