[JURIST] Judge James Ware of the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] Friday ruled [PDF text] that internet search giant Google [corporate backgrounder] must hand over the addresses of 50,000 randomly selected websites indexed by its search engine. The ruling was the latest development in an effort by the US Department of Justice [official website] to gain access to Internet search engine information to support its case for the revival of the Child Online Protection Act [text]. As anticipated [JURIST report] after a Tuesday hearing, however, Ware refused to force Google to hand over search terms used by site visitors as initially demanded by a DOJ subpoena [PDF text].

In a posting to Google's blog after Friday's ruling, Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong said the ruling was a victory for the company's ability to protect user privacy. AP has more.