Justice Dept. Rejects Google's Privacy Issues
    The Associated Press

    Sunday 26 February 2006

    San Francisco - Google Inc.'s concerns that a Bush administration demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests would violate privacy rights are unwarranted, the Justice Department said Friday in a court filing.

    The 18-page brief argued that because the information provided would not identify or be traceable to specific users, privacy rights would not be violated.

    The brief was the Justice Department's reply to arguments filed by Google last week. Google has rebuffed the government's demand to review a week of its search requests.

    The department believes that the information will help revive an online child protection law that the Supreme Court has blocked. By showing the wide variety of Web sites that people find through search engines, the government hopes to prove that Internet filters are not strong enough to prevent children from viewing pornography and other inappropriate material online.

    The filing included a declaration by Philip B. Stark, a statistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who rejected the privacy concerns, noting the government specifically requested that Google remove any identifying information.