SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation sent complaints today to the attorneys general of California and New York urging them to investigate Google for deceptive trade practices, related to the company's broken promise to give users prior notice before disclosing their information to law enforcement. 

The letters were sent on behalf of Amandla Thomas-Johnson, whose information was disclosed to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without prior notice from Google. 

For nearly a decade, Google has promised billions of users that it will notify them before disclosing their personal data to law enforcement. Many times, the company has done just that. But through a hidden and systematic practice, Google has likely violated that promise numerous times over the years. This was the case for Thomas-Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate who was targeted by ICE after briefly attending a protest, effectively preventing him from contesting an invalid subpoena for his data. 

"Google should answer the question: How many other times has it broken its promise to users?” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney F. Mario Trujillo. "Advance notice is especially important now, when agencies like ICE are unconstitutionally targeting users for First Amendment-protected activity. State attorneys general should investigate Google for this deception." 

On Google’s Privacy & Terms page, it promises its users that “When we receive a request from a government agency, we send an email to the user account before disclosing information.” This promise ensures that users can protect their own privacy and decide to challenge overbroad or illegal demands on their own behalf. The company lists a handful of exceptions to this policy (such as if Google receives a gag order from a court) that do not apply to Thomas-Johnson's case. While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas-Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court. 

But on May 8, 2025, Google complied with an administrative subpoena from ICE seeking Thomas-Johnson’s subscriber information, including his name, address, IP address, and other personal identifiers. Later that same day, the company sent Thomas-Johnson a message telling him it had already complied with the subpoena, which he would have successfully challenged had he been given advance notice. Google received the subpoena in April and had more than a month to alert Thomas-Johnson. 

Communication between EFF and Google later revealed that this is a systematic issue, not an isolated one. When Google does not fulfill a subpoena within a government-provided artificial deadline, the company's outside counsel explained, Google will sometimes comply with the request and provide notice to a user on the same day. The company calls this practice “simultaneous notice.” 

"What this experience has made clear is that anyone can be targeted by law enforcement," said Thomas-Johnson. "And with their massive stores of data, technology companies can facilitate those arbitrary investigations. Who, exactly, can I hold accountable?" 

Google must commit to ending this deception and pay for its past mistakes. The attorneys general of California and New York are empowered to stop deceptive business practices and seek financial restitution stemming from those practices. As EFF writes in its complaints, they should investigate, hold Google to its public promise to give users advanced notice of law enforcement demands, and take appropriate action if necessary.

Update: This press release has been updated to include more information about Google's exceptions to their notification policy, none of which applied to the subpoena targeting Thomas-Johnson. 
 
For the complaints:
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-re-google-notice-california 
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-re-google-notice-new-york 
https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-re-google-notice-exhibits
 
For Thomas-Johnson's account of his ordeal: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data 

For more information on lawless DHS subpoenas: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/open-letter-tech-companies-protect-your-users-lawless-dhs-subpoenas 

Contact: press@eff.org