Google preps privacy defences

By Steve Malone

Posted on 19 Feb 2006 at 21:35

Google is preparing a robust defence of its refusal to give the US Department of Justice (DoJ) access to its search logs. The company has now published its response (PDF) to the DoJ's subpoena. The document suggests that the government request is not only unnecessary but would also damage Google's business.

In August 2005, each of the major search engines received a request from the DoJ to hand over a week's worth of search logs so that the Department could carry out an investigation into the extent to which people were seeking out sites involved in paedophilia. Alone among the major search engines, Google refused. Last month the DoJ issued a subpoena to Google demanding the files. The search engine once again refused and is due in court later this week to defend its action.

In its rebuttal of the subpoena Google says that if it is forced to hand over the data it would 'compromise its principles'. The company maintains that 'Google will, without a doubt, suffer a loss of trust among users,' with the consequence that 'they will be less likely to use the service.' However, given that the major competitors including Yahoo!, MSN and AOL have already complied and handed over their files to the DoJ, users who fear for their privacy have few other places to go.

As far as principles go, Google has severely damaged its reputation for the moral high ground with the agreement to censor its search results in China, in order to get a foothold in the lucrative emerging market. As George Bernard Shaw remarked, 'We already know what kind of woman you are. We are negotiating over the price.'

Google also fears that in handing over the data, it would give its competitors valuable clues to the size of its index, its market share and its search and page ranking methods, all of which it is claiming are confidential. However, most of this information is publicly available through market research firms and a host of Google watchers in the search engine professional community. Although these sources are not publicly endorsed by Google, it is hard to consider how 'commercially sensitive' this information really is.

Google appears to be on somewhat firmer ground in arguing why the DoJ has asked for the files in the first place. The government says the request has been made in order to determine whether establishing filters or outlawing paedophilia sites altogether would be the best way forward.

Addressing the DoJ argument that the list of search queries is necessary to assist it in understanding 'the search behaviour of current web users,' Google points out that Search queries run on Google's databases come from a wide variety of sources. The data, stripped of personally identifying information, cannot reveal whether the search query was run by a child or adult, human or non-human, or on behalf of an individual or a business and so is effectively useless in determining behaviour except by treating all searchers as the same.

However, at the same time, Google raises the fear that the Government investigators would come across personally revealing data through user-initiated searches for their own social security or credit card numbers, or their mistakenly pasted but revealing text.