The New York Times reports that at a hearing in the California Federal District Court, the US government is now requesting a sample of 50,000 Web site addresses in Google’s index instead of a million, which it was demanding until recently. And it is asking for just 5,000 search queries, compared with an earlier demand for an entire week of queries, which could amount to billions of search terms.

The government says it intends to use the data in a study to measure the effectiveness of software that filters out pornographic Web sites. The government says it is not seeking information that would "personally identify" individuals.

"It is my intent to grant some relief to the government," Judge Ware said, "given the narrowing that has taken place with the request and its willingness to compensate Google for whatever burden that imposes."

He said he was particularly concerned about perceptions by the public that Web searches could be subject to government scrutiny, "so I’ll pay particular attention to that part of it." The judge said that he would issue a full decision shortly, but did not give a date.

UPDATE 20 March: The Judge has issued his decision which is analysed here at Concurring Opinions.

Although the Judge did not rule on the original subpoena he was critical of the government’s approach and did not give it access to the search queries at all, only the URL’s.