Back in 1998 the Child Online Protection Act was passed here in the United States. This act was created to protect children from harmful sexual material on the Internet. This act would have required adults to use access codes, or other methods of registering before they could view pornographic material online. Those distributors who violated this law would face fines of up to $50,000. However, this law was blocked by lower courts and had since then never taken effect.
Late last year the Justice Department issued a subpoena to Google. This subpoena requested that Google hand over a broad range of material from its database, which included one million random web address, and all Google searches from any one week period related to pornographic material. The Bush administration claims that it needs this vast amount of information to determine how often pornographic material shows up in web searches, in the administrations attempt to revive the Child Online Protection Act.
Not willing to be pushed around Google has refused to comply with the administrations request, stating that the release of such information would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets. The U.S. government has indicated that other unspecified search engines have already agreed to release the requested information. In the end will Google be able to protect their user's privacy, or will they also give in to the government's request?
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