The attorney general and the FBI director have asked the nations leading Internet service companies to keep a variety of customer information and other data for two years, much longer than the companies do now, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

Companies have varying policies regarding what information is kept and for how long.

One thing the Justice Department wants is some type of subscriber information, such as the Internet address assigned to a person when logging on to a service provider, according to two sources familiar with a meeting that was held last week between the government and the Internet companies.

The online industry is expected to strongly oppose any request to retain these types of records because of privacy concerns for their customers.

It is a slippery slope one of the sources said of the governments interest in the information. It becomes a fishing expedition.

The Internet companies have said there are other ways to get the information without them having to hand it over and believe requests like this are burden to the industry, the sources said.