Judge halts movie industry-backed probe against Google

US District Judge Henry T. Wingate has agreed to put the brakes on an investigation into Google by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood after the company complained that Hood’s inquiry was an illegal censorship campaign cooked up by Hollywood. The federal judge issued an order that will temporarily bar Hood from forcing Google to comply with the terms of a 79-page subpoena.

“Today, a federal court entered a preliminary injunction against a subpoena issued by the Mississippi Attorney General. We’re pleased with the court’s ruling, which recognizes that the [Motion Picture Association of Amercia]’s long-running campaign to censor the web -- which started with SOPA -- is contrary to federal law,” Google wrote in an update to an earlier blog post describing the case.