  In January 2006, many Google users learned that the search engine company had kept a log of all of their previous searches. At least four major search engine companies had been subpoenaed by the Bush Administration in 2005 for search records based on one week’s of searches during the summer of 2005 (see, for example, Nissenbaum 2010). They were Google, Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft (MSN). Google refused to turn over the information. The other search engine companies would not say how they responded; many assumed, however, that those companies complied with the government’s subpoena. Google was requested to turn over two items: (1) the results of search queries/requests it received during a one-week period, and (2) a random list of approximately one million URLs searched. Google argued that turning over this information would: (a) violate the privacy of its users (and undermine their trust in the search engine company), and (b) reveal information about the (proprietary) algorithm and the processes that Google uses and that this would potentially harm its competitive edge as a search service. A court ruled that Google did not have to comply with (1), but it reached a compromise regarding (2), ruling that Google turn over 50,000 URLs to the government (Nissenbaum 2010, 29–30).