The effort is part of a government campaign to revive an anti-pornography law, the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which the Supreme Court struck down two years ago. The law attempted to ensure that only adults visited porn sites by requiring that visitors register, or use access codes, before gaining entry to such sites. Now, the Bush administration is back in court, trying to prove that these requirements are the only realistic way of preventing minors from accessing online porn.

What remains unclear is why the government would need records from Google--which is, after all, a private company and not an investigative arm of the Department of Justice.

Google has vowed to fight the subpoena--not that it has much choice in the matter. Google already is under scrutiny by privacy advocates who want to know how Google intends to use the vast trove of information it has gleaned from users. If the company hopes to convince consumers that it will protect their privacy with e-mail, personalized home pages and the like, Google has to show that it's not about to turn over proprietary records without a battle.

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