"The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases. The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the US Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches," says the Mercury News.
"The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google."
Update 1: Danny Sullivan has posted on the issue at Search Engine Watch. He says:
Here's a thought. If you want to measure how much porn is showing up in searches, try searching for it yourself rather than issuing privacy alarm sounding subpoenas. It would certainly be more accurate.
Update 2: and Gary Price has produced a summary of what the government is after, with links to the documents.
