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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.

Other key dates noted by CNet are February 6th, when Google will file its arguments, and February 13th, when the Department of Justice submits its response to those arguments in court.

Google rebuffed DOJ on its requests for search records from its database, citing user privacy and trade secret concerns. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo all complied with the August subpoenas, actions that never would have come to light had Google also complied.

More US government officials got involved in the coming battle between US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Google's triumvirate of CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vt) sent Gonzales a letter demanding details about DOJ's intentions regarding the search information; House Representative Tom Davis (R-Va) attacked Google for cooperating with the Chinese government on censorship while fighting the US government; and House Representative Ed Markey (D-Ma) disclosed his intent to introduce legislation limiting the time Google and other search engines can warehouse information.

"Internet search engines provide an extraordinary service, but the preservation of that service does not rely on a bottomless, timeless database that can do great damage despite good intentions," said Rep. Markey in his statement.

Top search industry observers have questioned the DOJ's rationale for seeking that information, which DOJ claims will help it fight a constitutionality challenge over the Child Online Protection Act. DOJ thinks the information will show adult website publishers do not properly restrict harmful content from minors.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.