Facing an increasing number of requests for its users’ information, Google has begun charging law enforcement and other government agencies for legal demands seeking data such as emails, location tracking information and search queries, the New York Times reports. Google’s fees range from $45 for a subpoena and $60 for a wiretap to $245 for a search warrant. A spokesman for Google said the fees were intended in part to help offset the costs of complying with warrants and subpoenas. Federal law allows companies to charge the government reimbursement fees of this type. Google’s decision is a major change in how it deals with legal requests. Some Silicon Valley companies have for years forgone such charges, which can be difficult to enforce at a large scale and could give the impression that a company aims to profit from legal searches. Privacy experts support such fees as a deterrent to overbroad surveillance.
Google has tremendous amounts of information on billions of users, and law enforcement agencies around the world routinely submit legal requests seeking that data. In the first half of 2019, the company received more than 75,000 requests for data on nearly 165,000 accounts worldwide. For many years, the tech firm has not systematically charged for standard legal processes. The money brought in from the new fees would be inconsequential for Google. Just last week, the valuation of its parent company, Alphabet, topped $1 trillion for the first time.