by Playfuls Staff |
28th January 2006
Google’s problems with the US Government are far from over. Even if the search engine has refused to comply with the Department of Justice subpoena, now things will get a little bit more complicated, as we’re heading for a showdown in a federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Feb. 27.[more]
U.S. District Judge James Ware on Thursday set the date for the highly anticipated hearing, which is expected to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department will prevail in its fight to force Google to help it defend an anti-pornography law this fall.
Although the Justice Department also demanded that Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online to hand over similar records, Google was the only recipient that chose to fight the subpoena in court. After the spat became public last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said:" This is important for the Department of Justice and we will pursue this matter."
Ware also set a date of Feb. 6 for Google to file a legal brief with its arguments, and a Feb. 13 date for the Justice Department to submit its reply.
Prosecutors are requesting a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's popular search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google over a one-week period.
However, Google is determined to stand its ground. “It's our obligation to use the law to the farthest possible means to protect our users' privacy,'' Sergey Brin said in an interview yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to Bloomberg. “It's just a legal and ethical principle.''
“I don't think we like the precedent of it, and so we're fighting it,'' Brin, 32, said. “I think we're right.''
Brin, who founded Google with Larry Page, 33, as Stanford University students, said that because the company isn't party to the case, the subpoena isn't valid.
“We don't think it's a proper subpoena for some legal case, it's not anything we're even a party to,'' he said.
So, the time and place of the battle are now set. All we have to do now is wait and see what happens on February 27. One thing’s for sure. Whatever will go down there, in that Californian courtroom, will be a huge milestone in the history of online privacy and the Internet itself.
