Google Tells the Government to Shove it

Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine -- a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools of the government.

It started last summer, the government issued a subpoena to have Google give them the records of what millions and millions of us search for on the search engine.

Google said 'No.' (Yeah! Google).

Now the U.S. Attorney General is asking that Google be forced to hand over said records.

What do they want?

"The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week -- a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court."(AP Business writer, Michael Liedtke)

Yahoo, on the other hand, a Google competitor already gave the government what they were looking for. (Boo Yahoo!)

One of the other problems with all of this is that sometimes your search request contains information about you, such as your name and/or Social Security information

In Yahoo's defense they stated "We are rigorous defenders of our users' privacy," and, curiously "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue."

Microsoft Corp. MSN wouldn't even say if it got a similar subpoena.

I'm going to go on Google right now and look up "boobies"; I encourage you to do the same.