Judge James Ware of the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling in Gonzales v. Google, Inc. that gave Google a partial victory over the government. Judge Ware held that Google must give the government a random selection of 50,000 URLs in Google’s search index, but refused to compel Google to disclose user search queries. The court further ruled that Google will “not be required to disclose proprietary information” and that the government will have to pay “the reasonable cost incurred by Google” in extracting the URL information. According to this post by Google's Associate General Counsel, the company will comply with the court's order.
Background
The ACLU files a suit, challenging the Child Online Protection Act under the First Amendment. The government loses and appeals, eventually taking the case to the US Supreme Court. The Court holds that the government deserves a shot at a trial, but it will have to show that the statute is more effective at preventing minors from viewing “harmful” content on the Internet than other alternatives that would be “less restrictive” of First Amendment rights. The Court specifically focused on blocking and filtering software as a “less restrictive alternative.”
The government subsequently initiated a study designed to show the effectiveness of blocking and filtering software. It served Google, among others, with a subpoena that required the company to produce a list of all the URLs available to its users and the text of users’ search queries for a full month. Google objected to the subpoena. During the ensuing negotiations, the government agreed to accept a sample of 50,000 URLs and 5,000 searches from Google’s query log. Google nevertheless refused to comply with the subpoena. The government filed a motion to compel.
Google’s Arguments
Google advanced two major arguments: First, it argued that the information sought by the government is not reasonably calculated to lead to evidence admissible in the underlying litigation. Second, it argued that the production of the information is unduly burdensome. Google’s burden arguments focused on:
- the out-of-pocket expenses that it would incur in complying with the subpoena;
- the technological burden caused by having the government executing a high volume of searches on Google;
- the potential for loss of user trust that could harm Google’s business by deterring users to conduct certain searches; and
- the possible disclosure of Google’s trade secrets.
Google did not challenge the government’s subpoena on privacy grounds.
Read Part II of this post here.
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