Topix provides links to thousands of news stories a dayusingits automated localization system to sift through the stories, determine where the news took place, and what locations it’s relevant to. Stories are then filed according to category and ‘geo-coded’ to one or more of the 30,000+ cities and local communities. Any AP members who don’t want their stories on Topix can opt out.

“What is especially exciting here,” wrote Topix.net’s sales and marketing VP Chris Tolles on the Topix blog, “is the knowledge that we’re working with an industry that is trying to find its way on the web — not fleeing from it. We’ve always wanted to work well with publishers, and connect more people to great content.”

75% of Topix is controlled by three of the largest newspaper media organizations: Gannett, Knight Ridder, and the Tribune Co. The company, which is the 29th most visited news site, according to Niesen NetRatings, includes such partnersas the New York Times, Ask.com, and Yahoo.

The subpoena, which was issued last year, requested a myriad of material from the company’s databases, including records of all Google searches from any one-week period and a request for 1 million random web addresses. Though the papers have officially been filed Wednesday in a San Jose federal court, Google has refused to comply on the basis of personal information and privacy protection.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which would have punished violators with fines up to $50,000 or jail time, would have required adults to use access codes or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online — much of which they are finding through the search engine.

The data, if obtained by a federal court in Pennsylvania, would potentially help the government argue that a law would be more effective against child pornographers than a filtering software. Google has already said it will “vigorously” fight the governments push to obtain their data.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google tells the AP, “Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching.”

The data is collected when consumers respond to or click-through email offers and is then organized into particular categories which can then be purchased with major credit cards during the download. This information comes directly from the ConsumerBase database that contains some 76 million consumers. With this launch, ConsumerBase hopes to tap into behavioral marketing to track consumer behavior to help marketers better target their audiences.

“Simply put, past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior,” says Larry Organ, the company’s chief executive. “For those selling a product or service, what people do is what matters most. What they say is irrelevant. Now, ResponderInfo gives access to that information to companies focused on client acquisition.”