Google Inc. formally rejected the U.S. Justice Department's subpoena of data from the Web search leader, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users' Web searches and its own trade secrets.

Although Google is willing to censor material in China, the company is not yet ready to violate the privacy of users in the United States. In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Google also claimed that the government's demand to turn over search information is simply impractical because it won't aid the government in its current crusade. Unfortunately, competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to turn over data.

The Mountain View, California-based company said that complying with the U.S. government's request for "untold millions of search queries" would put an undue burden on the company, including a "week of engineer time to complete."

Complying with the Justice Department request would also force Google to reveal how its Web search technology works -- something it jealously guards as a trade secret, the company argued. It refuses to disclose even the total number of searches conducted each day.

This news article was written on February 20, 2006, quoting Reuters.