For Google, the quarrel with the Department of Justice has ended unexpectedly well. Judge James Ware decided yesterday that the US authorities have the right to receive the 50,000 web addresses from Google's index, but has denied access to the users' search queries.
This ruling is considered a victory for the online giant, especially since Ware had said a few days ago that he would probably force Google to turn over the data.
"It is my intent
to grant some relief to the government," Judge James Ware had been quoted by Reuters as saying.
Initially, the August subpoena mentioned the search queries carried out for two months. After a few months, the government's claims were reduced to two weeks and recently to 5,000 search terms and 50,000 web addresses from Google's index.
Another blow received by the American government is Ware's decision to reimburse Google for the effort required to turn over the data.
The Mountain View company's lawyers said they were satisfied with the federal judge's ruling.
"We will always be subject to government subpoenas, but the fact that the judge sent a clear message about privacy is reassuring. What his ruling means is that neither the government nor anyone else has carte blanche when demanding data from Internet companies," Google's associate general counsel, Nicole Wong, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying.
Google becomes the first Internet company that opposes and succeeds to reject a US DOJ subpoena, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL complying with the government's demands without putting up a good fight.
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