Gonzales v. Google, Inc.

234 F.R.D. 674 (N.D. Cal. 2006)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In the ACLU v. Gonzales, P subpoenaed D to compile and produce a massive amount of information from Google's search index, and to turn over a significant number of search queries entered by D users. D objected to the Government's request. P filed this action to compel D to comply with the subpoena. Upon enactment of COPA, the American Civil Liberties Union and others filed an action challenging the constitutionality of the Act. Eventually, the Supreme Court affirmed a preliminary injunction for the ACLU and held that there was an insufficient record before it by which P could carry its burden to show that less restrictive alternatives may be more effective than the provisions of COPA. P then filed a First Amended Complaint and initiated a study designed to somehow test the effectiveness of blocking and filtering software. To provide it with data for its study, P served a subpoena on D, America Online, Inc. ('AOL'), Yahoo! Inc. ('Yahoo'), and Microsoft, Inc. ('Microsoft'). The subpoena required that these companies produce a designated listing of the URLs which would be available to a user of their services. The subpoena also required the companies to produce the text of users' search queries. P now seeks only 50,000 URLs from D's search index and to all queries that have been entered on the D search engine during a one-week period. P then further restricted the scope of its request, and now represents that it only requires 5,000 entries from D's query log in order to meet its discovery needs. Despite these modifications, D maintained its objection to P's requests. Before the Court is a motion to compel D to comply with the modified subpoena.