This question is in payment of websearcher-ga for his work on question
#44275. Only websearcher-ga may answer this question - anyone else
answers it and
I'll ask for a refund. 
Thanks,
Jungle-ga

Hi jungle-ga!

Thanks again for your understanding. I sincerely hope that the
research I was able to do for you helped point you in a better
direction for your needs. I think that the infringement of your
client's trademarks is a seriously offence (and helps give the false
impression that the Internet is a "lawless" place).

Please use the Google Answers service again if there is anything
further we can help you with.

Sincerely, 

websearcher-ga

I didn't get the answer I wanted but the answer appears not to be
available which is an answer of sorts.  Thanks for your effort.
Jungle-ga

SInce I can't post a comment in the original question...

Did you consider contacting google about zeitgeist?

://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

For instance if you look at this posting regarding 9-11, they show a
graph of search queries by time, etc. for CNN,

://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/9-11-search.html

Thus they clearly track the type of information that would be useful
to you, unfortunately it is not clear how long they maintain that
information for, nor how extensive the information is (ie they may
only keep such information for the top 10 queries or some such...)

Just thought I'd mention another avenue for exploration.

LetterRip

Additional thoughts...

Googles ad words would give you the volume of queries for different
words so that you could customize your ad to your target audience. 
This is further evidence that they maintain such information.

You might consider finding a mathematical modeler to model the growth
function for search queries on a key term.  Thus if you could find the
current volume of searches for your product, you could then predict
the past volume of queries.

It really is dependent upon how much you estimate the infringement is
worth on what extent you are willing to go to.

LetterRip

LetterRip,
Ya, I looked at the zeitgeist data before and concluded that the data
wasn't helpful because:
- it only went back as far as 2001 and we wanted data for 2002
- it only tracks high traffic keywords not low traffic and we needed
data for some very low traffic obscure words.
Thanks for the input. Appreciated.
Jungle-ga

I know that the data they have posted only goes back to January 2001,
and only contains high volume data, but have you contacted google to
confirm that they don't have older data and rarer keywords?  (As I
mentioned above, the ad words program showed how many queries for each
target word for a months time frame, thus even extremely low traffic
search words were maintained for at least a month or so. 
Unfortunately without contacting google directly, we can't know if it
was only a month, or if they've kept it for years, and nor what degree
of aggregation has taken place.)

LetterRip

I just noted that they track and keep the data for at least a year,
for instance see this PDF file,

note that it has traffic data resolved to days from January 2000 to
january 2001!

Also note, that they have tracked volumes of searches from 0 for
obscure terms (ie assorted people, mispelled words, etc.)

Thus this strongly suggests that they have the data you are looking
for!

(Whether they can or will give it to you is a different question, or
whether they can be required to legally? )

://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/jan.pdf

LetterRip

LetterRip,
Thanks for the update. I have sent an em to press@google.com to see if
they have the data.  One of the problems that I am anticipating is
that they collected the data in Year 2002 but only archived the search
terms related to the highest volumes.  And dumped the rest.

I will let you know how they respond.  Your persistence is
encouraging.
Jungle

That is a standard beureaucratic answer, that is like talking to first
teir technical support etc., the only authority they have is to say no
<grin>.

Here are contact addresses and phone numbers

://www.google.com/corporate/address.html
://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html

I would suggest the Mountainview office since it is head quarters.

If you can get on the phone with someone with authority, and explain
that you that you need the information for a legal proceeding, and
would it be possible to obtain the information without a subpeona
since you'd much rather avoid dragging google into the mess, that
would be oh so helpful, etc.  And of course you would be happy to
compensate a technician for his time etc.

Probably someone in upper levels of sales or marketing would be best.

That is how I'd approach it <grin>, if you decide to give it a try let
me know how it turns out.

(Incidentally, can you subpeona such information?)

LetterRip

One more thing,

note that his answer is a 'form letter' style, and states 'if your
question is regarding advertising', it might even be an auto responder
based on key words.  You might be able to just call barry, explain the
situation, and see if he can bumb you up to someone who has authority
to say yes.

LetterRip