The Department of Justice has reached an agreement with Microsoft that will end a complaint made by Google about a Vista feature.

Lobbyists work on behalf of all sorts of nasty causes – some people might not approve of oil companies and tobacco corporations, for example.  But lobbyists also work on behalf of charitable organizations and the like.  And now one more lobbyist works for Google.

The leader of one of the oldest and most well known Internet software piracy groups, Hew Raymond Griffiths has pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement charges, in one of the first extraditions for an intellectual property offense.

Griffiths, a British national living in Bateau Bay, Australia was extradited in February 2007 to face charges in U.S. District Court.

An Indiana man was sentenced to over two years in prison for selling over $700,000 worth of counterfeit software on eBay, the US Department of Justice announced.

Courtney Smith, 36, of Anderson, Ind., was sentenced in US District Court to 27 months in prison, a two-year supervised release, and will face fines and restitution in excess of $7,000. That’s a pretty stiff penalty considering he only made $4,000 from the sale of pirated Rockwell Automation software.

Three agencies have partnered to raise awareness and educate teenage girls about the potential dangers of posting and sharing information online.The U.S. Department of Justice, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Ad Council all are focused on their Online Sexual Exploitation public service advertising (PSA) campaign.

A Brazilian website operator was arrested in Orlando, Fla. On charges of conspiracy to distribute “obscene matters,” the U.S. Dept. of Justice said in a joint-statement with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The Department of Justice didn’t buy Google’s complaint that Microsoft’s 7th version of Internet Explorer violated antitrust measures by setting MSN Search as the default search engine, bundled with next year’s release of Windows Vista. Having worldwide dominance in search probably didn’t help Google’s case.

As one lawsuit ends, Google finds another one cropping up in the wake of its victory over the Department of Justice; plenty of opinions have followed the news of the new litigation.

What began as a quest for virtually unfettered access to Google’s database of search information by the Department of Justice has ended with a judge’s decision that the DoJ receive 50,000 URLs retrieved with Google’s search engine, and zero queries.

A new study by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Connecticut suiggest 65% of Americans oppose government monitoring of search behavior with 50% saying search engines should not turn over any information to the government.

The Department of Justice has asked the presiding judge in Gonzales v. Google to impose a 21-day deadline for Google to hand over the search records DOJ requested in August 2005.

Subpoenas for more information from the major music labels are arriving from the Department of Justice, with industry sources claiming DOJ has opened a new investigation into possible industry collusion on prices.

CNet reports that Google could face a second subpoena, should the U.S. Justice Department successfully get the information it wants from the search engine.

If Google does not succeed in fending off Gonzalez v Google, the ACLU said it would have to ask for the same information the government requested.

Ars reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has received a complaint from a company, likely HP, that Microsoft is not complying with earlier antitrust rulings in regards to the Windows Vista setup process.

After all, as Cory Doctorow et al at BoingBoing point out, if there is no personally identifiable information in the data, there is no reason to keep it from being posted for review.

In chapter eight John Battelle’s incredible book, The Search, he astutely predicted that Google would increasingly fall under the watchful eye of the US government.

…and what does this move mean for online advertisers?

Judge James Ware of the US District Court in San Jose will hear arguments on February 27th from both sides over Google’s refusal to comply with federal subpoenas from August 2005.

US Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vt) has sent a written request to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for more information about Justice’s legal action against Google.

Google’s refusal to turn over a sample of search queries to the Department of Justice has caused a flurry of speculation about privacy issues, the government’s right to demand that information, what further information the government would demand, and Google’s true reasoning for denying the request. Of course, if you looked at the mainstream media coverage of the event, you might believe the issue revolves around kiddie porn and Google’s protection of it.