Subponea Notice from Google

[esotericfreedom]

My question involves court procedures for the state of: NY

I received a Subpoena Notice from Google. [URL Removed]

This is the back story: I was a member of a group for 20 years that I have since come to realize was a cult. One of the rules of the group was to never speak to anyone outside of the group about the group under any circumstances. Once you leave the group, you are shunned.

[Allegations and Names Removed. Follow the Forum Rules.]

My questions are: Can Google provide information which will reveal my identity and the identity of anonymous persons who have commented on the blog? Google doesn't have my real name or email but I suppose the only thing that they can give them about me is my IP address (?) and can that really identify me? Do I need an attorney to respond to them? And how do I find an attorney who specializes in this area? Does anyone know of any precedent with Google? I feel like the whole thing is a free speech issue and the cult is just doing this to harass me. I provide an open forum where everyone (myself included) can speak their mind on this issue. Is this a first amendment case? (Basically, this is a cult saying I can't talk about them.)

Any help you can give me will be appreciated.

[AZDeputyClerk]

Google is required to present any information demanded in the subpoena duces tecum for inspection or to show cause as to why that information should not be made available. If the subpoena is not quashed, they WILL provide the requested information for inspection, to include copying by the inspecting party.

[tex11]

Google has a policy of being highly uncoperative with subpoenas, and will often ignore or resist compliance with subpoenas issued from outside the State of California.

It takes a lot of legal effort and expense and jumping through hoops to ultimately prevail on such a request to Google, and even so many such attempts fail. Google appears to be more cooperative with shutting down offensive sites than they are with releasing private information.


http://www.reputationdefenseonline.c...al-department/

On May 17, 2011, represented by Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP as local counsel, Google Inc., succeeded in defeating a second attempt by a plaintiff in a civil suit to obtain access to an accountholder’s protected information via a civil discovery subpoena. See Bower v. Bower, et al., No. 10-405 (D. Mass. April 5, 2011). By denying the Bower plaintiff’s motion to reconsider, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dein upheld her previous decision wherein she held that the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701, et seq. (the “SCA”) precludes electronic service providers such as Google from producing emails in response to civil discovery subpoenas.
http://www.nutter.com/Google-Inc-suc...as-08-03-2011/

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL YAHOO! AND GOOGLE TO COMPLY WITH THIRD-PARTY DOCUMENT SUBPOENAS

April 5, 2011

http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/cgi...gle%204-10.pdf

While taking no position on the merits of the underlying dispute, Yahoo! and Google have asserted that they are unable to comply with the subpoenas because the requested production is barred by the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701,et seq. (“SCA”). This court agrees, and, for the reasons detailed herein, the motion to compel is DENIED.

Yahoo! and Google are “electronic communication service” providers and are governed by the SCA. The SCA provides in relevant part that: a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to
the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service[.] 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a)(1). The statute lists eight explicit exceptions to this prohibition, but does not include in that list responding to a civil subpoena. See 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(1)-(8). Rather, pursuant to § 2703, governmental entities may require the disclosure of the contents of customers’ electronic communications or subscriber information in the context of ongoing criminal investigations, but no similar authority is granted to civil litigants.

In short, “[p]rotecting privacy interests in personal information stored in computerized systems, while also protecting the Government’s legitimate law enforcement needs, the Privacy Act creates a zone of privacy to protect internet subscribers from having their personal information wrongfully used and publicly disclosed by ‘unauthorized private parties,’ S.REP. No. 99-541, at 3 (1986), as reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3555, 3557.” In re Subpoena Duces Tecum to AOL, LLC, 550 F. Supp. 2d 606, 610 (E.D. Va. 2008).

Faced with this statutory language, courts have repeatedly held that providers such as Yahoo! and Google may not produce emails in response to civil discovery subpoenas. See, e.g., id. at 609-611, and cases cited.

...plaintiff’s motion to compel... is DENIED.

[cmre3456]

You "received a subpoena notice from Google." In context, it sounds like you received a copy of a subpoena which was directed at Google?

All Google knows about you is the IP address of your internet service provider. Google does have server farms located around the country but I don't know if any are in your state. They have a massive one here in Oregon next to The Dalles Dam on the Columbia River where there is abundant power. They also locate near nuclear power plants, etc. They really gobble the power.

The cost to the plaintiff in finding out who you are will be massive. They are going to have to pay Google to do a records search on old postings (If Google keeps records that old) to find the exact postings which are in dispute, and then find out where they came from. Google isn't required to do that for free. As someone else said, Google will balk and run up the legal fees for the plaintiff just trying to get Google to comply.

Then the plaintiff will have to pay your ISP to do the same, to find out who had your IP at that moment in time. Almost all ISP's use dynamic IP's rather than static so that their block of IP addresses can serve more people. That IP only tracks the posting to a location, not to a person. With any luck you posted from a Starbucks, LOL.

If they eventually trace it to your home, do you have more that one user in your home? Does more than one person use the computer? Better yet, do you have a router and more than one computer? You can be traced only to your router. Your router assigns internal IP addresses to individual computers and they are hidden from the internet. The router is the computer that the internet sees. It has the IP address assigned by the ISP. That's the end of the trail.

If it were me, and if more than one person used the computer or better yet if there is a router and more than one computer, I'd prove that and then plead the fifth. There's no way they can prove who made the posting.

I won't advise you to destroy evidence by getting a program which will securely wipe internet activity, and another which will wipe empty space on your hard disk, or by destroying the hard disk and starting over fresh. That's a no-no.

As always, if this is a big thing with serious consequences, please get an attorney.

cmre,
Mocrosoft Certified Systems (network, worldwide internet) Engineer.