The American court charged with examining the case that opposes the Government and Google decided that the Internet company will have to provide information on 50,000 website addresses indexed to its search engine, but will not have to provide any data on the search results of users, as requested by the Government.
The Bush Administration wanted Google, like other Internet companies, to provide access to information on the most commonly used search criteria on the service for a week.
This information would help to prepare new legislation in the area of ​​child pornography.
The company declined the request alleging that it would thus be disclosing commercial information, which motivated the appeal to court.
The answer now comes in a 21-page report that Google applauds considering that in this way «it is clear that neither Governments nor anyone has carte blanche to ask Internet companies for information,» says Nicole Wong, a lawyer for the company.
It should be recalled that the Government had already significantly reduced the scope of its request, going from an entire week of records to just 5,000 search results in the information request it submitted to the court.
Even so, the justice considered that access to this type of information raised privacy issues, choosing to block political intentions.
Google has until April 3 to bring information about the 50,000 sites indexed to its search to justice.
Related News:
2006-02-20 – Google grounds refusal to make research results available to the US Government
2006-01-20 – Google refuses to hand over search records to US government