Have a Search Warrant for Data? Google Wants You to Pay:
The tech giant has begun charging U.S. law enforcement for responses to search warrants and subpoenas.
[...] Facing an increasing number of requests for its users’ information, Google began charging law enforcement and other government agencies this month for legal demands seeking data such as emails, location tracking information and search queries.
Google’s fees range from $45 for a subpoena and $60 for a wiretap to $245 for a search warrant, according to a notice sent to law enforcement officials and reviewed by The New York Times. The notice also included fees for other legal requests.
A spokesman for Google said the fees were intended in part to help offset the costs of complying with warrants and subpoenas.
Federal law allows companies to charge the government reimbursement fees of this type, but Google’s decision is a major change in how it deals with legal requests.
Some Silicon Valley companies have for years forgone such charges, which can be difficult to enforce at a large scale and could give the impression that a company aims to profit from legal searches. But privacy experts support such fees as a deterrent to overbroad surveillance.
Google has tremendous amounts of information on billions of users, and law enforcement agencies in the United States and around the world routinely submit legal requests seeking that data. In the first half of 2019, the company received more than 75,000 requests for data on nearly 165,000 accounts worldwide; one in three of those requests came from the United States.
[...] The new fees could help recover some of the costs required to fill such a large volume of legal requests, said Al Gidari, a lawyer who for years represented Google and other technology and telecommunications companies. The requests have also grown more complicated as tech companies have acquired more data and law enforcement has become more technologically sophisticated.
“None of the services were designed with exfiltrating data for law enforcement in mind,” said Mr. Gidari, who is now the consulting privacy director at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society.
[...] In April, The Times reported that Google had been inundated with a new type of search warrant request, known as geofence searches. Drawing on an enormous Google database called Sensorvault, they provide law enforcement with the opportunity to find suspects and witnesses using location data gleaned from user devices. Those warrants often result in information on dozens or hundreds of devices, and require more extensive legal review than other requests.
[...] Google will not ask for reimbursement in some cases, including child safety investigations and life-threatening emergencies, the spokesman said.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Booga1 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:18AM (8 children)
There's an easy solution. Stop keeping all that data and there won't be any expenses incurred to provide it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:00PM (6 children)
My understanding is that you have to obey the warrant and go to court to collect any undue costs, but that ordinary costs are not going to be reimbursed, part of your obligations is to eat ordinary costs as part of being a good citizen, whether corporate or human. New jurisprudence to refuse warrants anyone?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:08PM
Another argument against payment, cynical, rooted in the 3d Party Doctrine, would be that since these businesses and their data collection processes constitute an end run around the 4A, if they are paid to process mere subpoenas (different from warrants) they are being treated more like the government contracted surveillance companies they are. I expect the government to fight payment.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:25PM
So you think the government was just bluffing with that law?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)
When the sheer numbers of these requests become overwhelming, there is clearly some point, some blurry line, where this changes from "ordinary costs" to extraordinary and burdensome. It is obvious when you need to have an entire staff dedicated to handling these requests.
That's because they are grasping at straws. (and, no, I don't mean masturbation)
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @04:12PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:57PM
yes. when they place an "order" you give them the invoice. my gov contract rate is one billion $ an hr.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:21AM
So if the cops show up with a warrant does that mean I can tell them to go fucké themselves if they don't pay for access?
Why was this modded down? Whatever applies to Google has to apply to the rest of us, no? Why do we allow this?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:08PM
Google provides storage systems for users...
If they stop storing that data, they will have several angry users.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:23AM (2 children)
Please, daddy government, request more subpoenas, its good for business!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:38AM
I will make it legal.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:37PM
The sheer stupidity. You left out asking for more regulations and a double helping of more taxes.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:59AM (2 children)
No need for charges, they got nothing to sell to the pigs.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:54PM
Anyone use gmail to contact you? Google has it. Watch YouTube or use Google Maps. Google knows what you're interested in and where you want to go. Use an Android phone? You're screwed. Visit a web site that used Google Analytics? They fingerprint your browser and combine that with your location to distinguish you from the others in your area with the same browser fingerprint. Use Ghrome? #YouGottaBeKiddingMe.
They track you. Every way they can. Even if you never use any of their services, they sell your profile to advertisers. Same as even if you don't use Facebook, they have a shadow profile on you, and it probably includes your name, same as Google.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 29 2020, @04:00AM
One should pray that that is so, given that DuckDuckGo's founder's previous project was dedicated solely to collecting user data which was then sold to a ready bidder, along with all the data.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:26PM
Dear Google... Please increase your fees.
Also,
With the assumption that they use common sense in determining this basis, not just what law enforcement tells them; this is another positive.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday January 28 2020, @01:47PM
Gosh it is so difficult for the government to get what cambridge analytica and foreign governments already have?
Why not just hire black cube and piggyback off their full access?
Or is that just what palantir does for all parties involved?
https://archive.is/HTALt [archive.is]
https://archive.is/EoIML [archive.is]
https://archive.is/xPOYX [archive.is]
https://archive.is/f4TVo [archive.is]
For all intents and purposes, rubes, google is a branch of your government.
Why are so many people so far behind? Oh, same people own everything else they watch thinking they are being informed.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
decultification.org
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @02:56PM (2 children)
His real name is Brent Spiner.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:02PM
Google is his pimp now? He has fallen a long way since his days on the Enterprise.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:39PM
Data does not want to be free.
It's his brother that wants to be free.
Google wants to charge for data.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.