Updated on Thursday, November 30, 2006, 00:00 IST

San Fransisco, Nov 30: Yahoo!, owner of the second- most used internet search engine, is resisting efforts by Google inc. to obtain documents for a legal battle with the publishing industry over book scanning.

Google's Subpoena seeks too much confidential information that is irrelevant to its defence of a project to make library books available on the web, said Yahoo's associate general counsel.

''We don't want to be dragged into this lawsuit,'' Davis said in an interview. ''This is Google's fight with the publishers back in New York, and it's not our fight.''

Publishers and authors have sued Google, claiming the company doesn't have the right to copy books from libraries without permission. Mountain view, California-based Google, the largest search engine, says it complies with copyright law by only showing ''snippets'' of protected works to the public.

Yahoo also objected to the subpoena on the grounds that the Sunnyvale, California-based company doesn't have a comparable program to scan library books. Yahoo is backing an organization called the open content alliance that is seeking permission from copyright holders before scanning their material.

Yahoo informed Google of its objection to the Subpoena on November 21, said a Yahoo spokeswoman.

Bureau Report