Mar 18, 2006, 23:06 GMT
Washington/San Jose - Internet search engine Google won a partial victory against the US government after a federal judge ruled that the company did not have to turn over customer search queries to the US Justice Department, reports said Saturday.
District Judge James Ware in San Jose, California however in his ruling late Friday said that the company did have to hand over up to 50,000 internet addresses from its index of sites.
The Justice Department had originally sought access to up to a million web addresses and thousands of search queries. The data was sought in order to support a lawsuit pending in Pennsylvania over whether a federal law may be more effective than filtering software in blocking children's access to online pornography.
Google, the most used search engine on the internet, however argued that compliance with the request would be a violation of its users' privacy rights. 'This is a clear victory for our users and for our company,' said company lawyer Nicole Wong following the court verdict.
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