Commonwealth v. Kurtz

Defendant challenged under the state and federal search and seizure clauses a “reverse keyword" search warrant used by police to obtain the IP address of anyone who Googled a sexual assault victim’s name or address before the crime. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in an opinion of three justices announcing the judgment, held there was no enforceable expectation of privacy in the Google search terms. Three justices concurred in upholding the warrant because there was probable cause to support it, but only assumed without deciding that a constitutionally protected search occurred. One dissenting justice would have held there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in the Google searches under the state clause.