American law has never taken an absolutist view of privacy rights. For example, even lawyer confidentiality has exceptions, as for example when a client tells you he is going to commit a future crime (that is not regarded as privileged and can be disclosed by the attorney to the authorities).<p>In the context of lawsuits and court orders, the key to protecting privacy is to abide by due process concerns. In other words, sometimes otherwise private information can become subject to discovery through legal processes such as third-party subpoenas. A holder of that information, such as Google, has no direct stake in the fight between the parties and will not disclose such information voluntarily. Nonetheless, court processes permit litigants to use lawful means to compel disclosure. Notice typically must be given to the adverse party, who in turn has a right to contest the litigant's right to obtain the information. A neutral judge will then consider whether the information ought to be protected when weighing the importance of disclosure in such a case against any rights of privacy that might be implicated (it is this process of notice, opportunity to contest, and neutral judicial evaluation that affords the due process protections). In most such cases, privacy rights do ultimately trump disclosure but not in all. Thus, when a court orders that disclosure be made, a litigant is forced to make it and, if a third party such as Google holds that information, it too is ordered to make it, though it has no stake in the fight.<p>Since American law is not absolutist on the privacy issues, and since Google must comply with lawful court orders, I don't think it can be faulted for doing so. Also, given the likely <i>huge</i> number of times it finds itself in this position, I don't think there is anything untoward about a number such as "9,000 times a year." This is perhaps why Mr. Schmidt made his comment in such an off-handed way. This is just a routine part of doing business.<p>I will grant there are <i>policy</i> arguments that could be made to the contrary but, legally, Google is on sound footing in its handling of privacy issues as described in the article.