US Government seeks Google user details

THE Bush Administration has demanded that Google Inc provide details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for one million random web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period, according to lawyers for the US Justice Department in papers filed yesterday in a San Jose, California court.

The US Government contends it needs the data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches, as part of an effort to revive an internet child protection law that was struck down two years ago by the US Supreme Court on free-speech grounds.