Google takes hit in fight with feds over foreign data

Google lost a battle with the federal government over a previously undisclosed request to turn over data stored on servers outside of the U.S., according to court filings.

In the filings, which were first reported on by Politico, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a move by Google to challenge a warrant demanding data from the company being stored overseas.

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On Sept. 5, Howell decided to hold the search giant in contempt for not turning over the documents, and fined Google $10,000 a day until it complies.

“We’re continuing to follow the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision and will decline to produce data stored overseas in courts that fall within that circuit,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Hill. “To seek consistency in the law, we are appealing some of the cases where lower courts have decided not to follow the ruling of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.” 

The battle between the technology firm based in Mountain View, Calif., and the government is part of a larger fight between tech companies and the federal government over data.

Technology firms like Google, Microsoft and others have fought against the government’s demands for its users’ data in court. Others, like Twitter, have spent lobbying money to limit the government’s ability to demand such information.

Tech firms argue that many of the requests are unnecessary and too wide-reaching. They’re also concerned in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks that foreign countries are losing confidence in the firms’ ability to securely store data. After the leaks, countries became interested in data localization, or partitioning of their own little nodes of the internet, to protect their data from U.S. surveillance.

Tech firms worry such a Balkanization of the internet could hurt their bottom line. Such laws could prevent countries that implement them from using cloud computing services, which has been valuable to companies like Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon and others.

The Supreme Court is preparing to potentially hear a case on the matter between Microsoft and the U.S. over a request from the Department of Justice for email data stored in Ireland. Technology companies will be closely watching the case, which could have industrywide impacts on what types of electronic communication the government can request.

–This story was updated on Sept. 16 at 3:51 p.m.