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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

> http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20060317%2F2154129782.htm&sc=1333
>
> Google Avoids Surrendering Search Requests
>
> By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
>
> SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal judge on Friday ordered Google Inc. to
> give the Bush administration a peek inside its search engine, but
> rebuffed the government's demand for a list of people's search
> requests - potentially sensitive information that the company had
> fought to protect.
>
> In his 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge James Ware told Google to
> provide the U.S. Justice Department with the addresses of 50,000
> randomly selected Web sites indexed by its search engine by April 3.
>
> The government plans to use the data for a study in another case in
> Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration is trying to revive a law
> meant to shield children from online pornography.
>
> Ware, though, decided Google won't have to disclose what people have
> been looking for on its widely used search engine, handing a
> significant victory to the company and privacy rights advocates.
>
> ``This is a clear victory for our users,'' Nicole Wong, Google's
> associate general counsel said in a statement Friday.
>
> Attempts to reach a spokesman for the Justice Department late Friday
> weren't immediately successful.
>
> The government had asked for the contents of 5,000 randomly selected
> search requests, dramatically scaling back its initial demands after
> Google's vehement protests gained widespread attention.
>
> When the Justice Department first turned to Ware for help in January,
> the government wanted an entire week's worth of Google search requests
> - a list that would encompass queries posed by millions of people.
>
> 03/17/06 21:54