Google fired back at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on Thursday, expressing concerns about the association?s actions against the search giant. According to The Verge, "at the beginning of this year, the MPAA and six studios - joined together to begin a new campaign" to figure how it could secretly revive SOPA. It "joined together to begin a new campaign" to achieve wholesale site-blocking by "[convincing] state prosecutors to take up the fight against [Google]." The movie studios "budgeted $500,000 a year towards providing legal support"?and the MPAA later sought up to $1.175 million for this campaign.

With that money, the MPAA then hired law firm Jenner & Block to go after Google while also funding an astroturf group?the Digital Citizens Alliance- with the same goal of attacking Google. (Source: The New York Times).

The MPAA then reportedly pitched Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood, an admitted SOPA supporter, and Attorney General Hood sent Google a letter making numerous accusations about the company.

According to Google's Kent Walker, SVP and General Counsel, the letter coverd a variety of topics over which "he lacks jurisdiction." The Verge reported that the MPAA and its members discussed such subpoenas and certainly knew about this subpoena?s existence before it was even sent to Google.

"We are deeply concerned about recent reports that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) led a secret, coordinated campaign to revive the failed SOPA legislation through other means, and helped manufacture legal arguments in connection with an investigation by Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood," Walker wrote in a blog post.

Almost three years ago, millions of Americans helped stop a piece of congressional legislation - supported by the MPAA - called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). If passed, SOPA would have led to censorship across the web.