Catching up on some important news from last week, the judge in the
case of the US Department Of Justice versus Google has ruled that Google does
NOT have to provide the DOJ with query logs. Google
calls it a victory, and I
agree.
Let’s recap:
- Last year, the DOJ
demanded
that Google handover two month’s worth of query data, from June 1 through
July 31, 2005. That would have been billions of queries in total. Just put
them in an “electronic file,” Google was told. Then find a terabyte USB key
big enough to hold this monstrous text file, so that I guess the DOJ could
open it up in WordPad on the
special
computer used to process Bill Gates’s taxes. Maybe that has enough memory
to load the file :) - The DOJ backed off the original request, saying it wanted only on week’s
worth of data. “Only a week” still would have put the number of queries in the
billion plus range. - In court last week, the DOJ declared that it now only needed 5,000 random
queries in total. Got it? Originally it needed billions of queries and went to
court to force Google’s hand, then it decides only 5,000 were necessary.
The judge decided against giving the DOJ any search data at all. Why? From my
reading of the
ruling (PDF format), the judge found that the possible concerns over privacy
outweighed the concerns that the DOJ needed to have Google’s data in addition to
data it already obtained from other search engines or could obtain through other
options.
The judge noted that Google itself warns users that government actions might
require it to hand over private data. Still, the judge wrote:
The expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable, but
may nonetheless have an appreciable impact on the way in which Google is
perceived, and consequently the frequency in which users use Google. Such an
expectation does not rise to the level of an absolute privilege, but does
indicate that there is a potential burden as to Google’s loss of goodwill if
Google is forced to disclose search queries to the Government.
But the government didn’t want private data, right? They only wanted queries,
not the other log information that might link the queries personally with
anyone.
That’s not entirely correct. ” Private Searches
Versus Personally Identifiable Searches” is my past article that explains how
all searches are private, at least in the minds of many searching. Moreover,
some of these private searches might contain information to somewhat link them
back to an individual. True, the searches can’t be absolutely, positively
identified back to an individual. However, they still remain “private” in
nature.
The judge clearly was concerned about this, enough so to ultimately
ruled against the query log handover:
Thus, while a user’s search query reading “[user name] stanford glee club”
may not raise serious privacy concerns, a user’s search for “[user name] third
trimester abortion san jose,” may raise certain privacy issues as of yet
unaddressed by the parties’ papers. This concern, combined with the prevalence
of Internet searches for sexually explicit material (Supp. Stark Decl.
¶4) — generally not information that anyone
wishes to reveal publicly — gives this Court pause as to whether the search
queries themselves may constitute potentially sensitive information.
Google does have to handover 50,000 random URLs from its index, which doesn’t
impact the privacy of anyone. Interestingly, the ruling does put Google in an
odd position. Now it has a court backing up the idea that query logs are
private. So should it still be publishing query log data through tools like
those provided to AdWords advertisers? I showed
earlier how I
could use that tool to find things queries containing social security numbers.
Perhaps the company might find itself the target of a different suit down the
line, by someone claiming their privacy was violated through exposure like this.
I think that’s unlikely, but it’s worth noting. Overall, I still am glad to
have these types of tools (other search engines offer them as well). I think
there’s a difference between the government overreaching to ask for billions of
queries versus advertisers doing more focused research on searching patterns.
And heck, the government could have just used the advertiser tools themselves.
For background on the case, see these past articles from us:
- Bush
Administration Demands Search Data; Google Says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo Said Yes - Court
Documents & Summary Of United States Versus Google Over Search Data - The Day
After: Points In The Search Trust Sweepstakes - Privacy
Groups, Goverment Officials Comment on Privacy and Web Search - Google’s
Larry Page Comments on Privacy Matters - MSN Search
Blogs On DOJ Request - A Brief
Look at Danny’s Appearance on Nightline - Full Text
Reports from the Congressional Research Service on Internet Privacy, Net
Technology, and Protecting Children from “Unsuitable Material” - Protecting
Your Search Privacy: A Flowchart To Tracks You Leave Behind - Private
Searches Versus Personally Identifiable Searches - Google Not
Installing Third Party Cookies — It’s Firefox Prefetching - New Poll
Finds Web Users Want Google to Keep Data Private; Full Text Access to Report
Also Available - Scoble:
Search Champs Talk to MSN VP about Data Turned Over to Feds - Search Data
Request Has Searchers Pondering Their Next Query - U.S.
Senator Patrick Leahy Asks Attorney General for More Info On Web Search
Subpeonas - Google Has
Right to Log the Text of Messages Sent Using their Send to SMS Feature - How The US
Department Of Justice May Analyze Search Data & Freedom Of Information Act
Request For Disclosure - Which
Search Engines Log IP Addresses & Cookies — And Why Care? - Data
Privacy Bill Introduced, Not Well Thought Out - Murder
Suspect Entwistle’s Desktop Search Query to be Used in Court Case - 60% Oppose
Search Engines Storing Search Behaviors - Department
of Justice Rejects Google’s Claims of Privacy Threat - Google
Filings Against DOJ Request — Including Declaration From Matt Cutts - Department
of Justice Rejects Google’s Claims of Privacy Threat - Judge:
Google Must Give Up Some Data To Department Of Justice