Google is giving police IP addresses for users based on warrants tied to search keywords, raising questions about constitutional rights (article available here). Google handed over IP addresses for users who searched for a specific address shortly before someone set fire to the car of a witness in the racketeering case against the accused singer R. Kelly. The search keyword warrant led to the arrest of Michael Williams, an associate of Kelly’s, on charges of both arson and witness tampering.
Court documents showed that Google provided the IP addresses of people who searched for the arson victim's address, which investigators tied to a phone number belonging to Williams. Police then used the phone number records to pinpoint the location of Williams' device near the arson, according to court documents. The original warrant sent to Google is still sealed, but the report provides another example of a growing trend of data requests to the search engine giant in which investigators demand data on a large group of users rather than a specific request on a single suspect.