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Yahoo Gave Search Data To Lawyers

Now that's interesting... Yahoo Gave Search Data To Bush Administration Lawyers requested in a subpoena from the Bush administration, which is hoping to use the information to revive an anti-porn law that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The disclosure followed reports that rival search engine Google Inc. had refused to comply with a similar subpoena, issued last year. The government had asked for a broad amount of data, including a million random Web addresses and records of Google searches over any week, the Associated Press reported. The information came from U.S. Justice Department papers filed Wednesday in a San Jose, Calif., federal court.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said the company, which she described as a "rigorous" defender of user privacy, did not provide personal information in response to the Justice Department subpoena.

I am sure they did not provide personal data - at least they didn't tell anyone that Mr Holmes did query this and that...

but the traffic and search patterns are also of a sort of privacy ... they document a whole nations behaviourous patterns... and I am not sure if I want the government to know exactly what people are searching for and visiting to... especially not if they are tending to forbid any kind of content - may it be porn, or any other type of content that seems to be "bad" in the light of a current government...

heck - I really wonder what Bush want's to mess around with porn again? and nobody really cares about so many killed people in stupid oil-and-money-based wars led by the us government...

I'm sure the next time they are going to filter out some anti-war content... just can't wait to see the next DMCA-complaint notice about this post or some other US based threat to silence criticism or competition...

Meanwhile the Feds take porn fight to Google as well... a request that Google is adamantly denying... :-) are they the good ones?