Google litigation

Google has been involved in multiple lawsuits over issues such privacy, advertising, intellectual property and various Google services such as Google Books and YouTube. The company’s legal department expanded from one to nearly 100 lawyers in the first five years of business, and by 2014 had grown to around 400 lawyers.^[1][2] Google's Chief Legal Officer is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond ^[3]

Privacy

United States v. Google Inc.

United States v. Google Inc. is a case in which the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved a stipulated order for a permanent injunction and a $22.5 million civil penalty judgment, the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ever historically won.^[4] The FTC and Google Inc. consented to the entry of the stipulated order to resolve the dispute which arose from Google's violation of its privacy policy. In this case, the FTC found Google liable for misrepresenting "privacy assurances to users of Apple's Safari Internet browser".^[5] It was reached after the FTC considered that through the placement of advertising tracking cookies in the Safari web browser, and while serving targeted advertisements, Google violated the 2011 FTC's administrative order issued in FTC v. Google Inc.^[6]

Google Spain v AEPD and Mario Costeja González

Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González was a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union holding that an internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal information which appears on web pages published by third parties.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Hibnick v. Google, Inc.

Hibnick v Google was a class action suit against Google in 2010. The suit accused Google of breaching several electronic communications laws with the launch of their new product Google Buzz.^[11][12][13] Google Buzz was a social media network that automatically plugged into Gmail.

Joffe v. Google, Inc.

Joffe v. Google, Inc. was a federal lawsuit between Ben Joffe and Google, Inc. that entered official Supreme Court jurisdiction in November 2010. Joffe claimed that Google broke one of the Wiretap Legislation segments when they intruded on the seemingly “public” wireless networks of private homes through their Street View application. Although Google appealed multiple times, the courts ruled in favor of Joffe.

Mosley v SARL Google

Mosley v SARL Google was a 2013 French court case in which former President of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile Max Mosley attempted to make the internet search engine Google remove images of him engaging in a sado-masochistic sex act with several prostitutes. The publication of the images in the (now defunct) British newspaper The News of the World was litigated in Mosley v News Group Newspapers and resulted in Mr Mosley being awarded £60,000 in damages.

Advertising

Google, Inc. v. American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc.

Google, Inc. v. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, Inc.^[14] was a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that challenged the legality of Google's AdWords program. The court concluded that, pending the outcome of a jury trial, Google AdWords may be in violation of trademark law.

Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc.

Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc. was a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case in which the court held that recommending a trademark for keyword advertising was a commercial use of the trademark, and could constitute trademark infringement. The case involved Rescuecom. Prior to the case's resolution, Google recommended the 'Rescuecom' trademark to businesses (including Rescuecom's competitors), that were buying keywords through Google's AdWords product.

Rosetta Stone v. Google Inc

Rosetta Stone v. Google was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that challenged the legality of Google's AdWords program. The Court overturned a grant of summary judgment for Google that had held Google AdWords was not a violation of trademark law.

Goddard v. Google, Inc.

Goddard v. Google, Inc. is a case in which Jenna Goddard alleged that she was harmed by Google as a result of clicking allegedly fraudulent web-based advertisements for mobile subscription services. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that the action was barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA") and dismissed the complaint.

Rocky Mountain Bank v. Google, Inc.

Rocky Mountain Bank v. Google Inc. was a decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California holding that Google had to reveal the account information of a Gmail user who had been mistakenly sent sensitive information from Rocky Mountain Bank.

Android

Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc. is a dispute related to Oracle's copyright and patent claims on Google's Android operating system. In May 2012, the jury found that Google did not infringe Oracle's patents, and the trial judge ruled that the structure of the Java APIs used by Google was not copyrightable.^[15][16]

YouTube

Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc.

Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. is a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York case in which Viacom sued alleging that YouTube had engaged in "brazen" and "massive" copyright infringement by allowing users to upload and view hundreds of thousands of videos owned by Viacom without permission.^[17] A motion for summary judgement seeking dismissal was filed by Google and was granted in 2010 on the grounds that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbor" provisions shielded Google from Viacom’s copyright infringement claims.^[18] In 2012, on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, it was overturned in part. On April 18, 2013, District Judge Stanton again granted summary judgment in favor of defendant YouTube.^[19] An appeal was begun, but the parties settled in March 2014.^[20]

Garcia v. Google, Inc.

Garcia v. Google, Inc. is a case where Cindy Lee Garcia sued Google and its video-sharing website, YouTube, to have the controversial film, Innocence of Muslims, taken down from the site. A California district court denied Garcia’s motion for preliminary injunction, but, on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision, ordered YouTube to take down all copies of Innocence of Muslims, and remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration.^[21]

Google Books

Authors Guild, Inc. V. Google, Inc.

Authors Guild v. Google was a copyright case litigated in the United States centering on the allegations by the Authors Guild that Google infringed their copyrights in developing its Google Book Search database. The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement was a proposed settlement agreement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and Google in settlement of Authors Guild v. Google|Authors Guild et al. v. Google, a class action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. The settlement was initially proposed in 2008, and ultimately rejected by the court in 2011. In late 2013, the presiding U.S. Circuit Judge dismissed Authors Guild et al. v. Google.^[22]

Field v. Google, Inc.

Field v. Google, Inc. is a case where Google successfully defended a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Field argued that Google infringed his exclusive right to reproduce his copyrighted works when it "cached" his website and made a copy of it available on its search engine. Google raised multiple defenses: fair use, implied license, estoppel, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection. The court granted Google's motion for summary judgment and denied Field's motion for summary judgment.

Mian Mian lawsuit

In December 2009, Chinese writer Mian Mian filed a lawsuit against the company, for scanning her entire novel without notifying her or paying her for copyright permission.^[23] Google removed Mian's work from its online library shortly after learning of the suit. In January 2013, a Chinese court ordered Google to pay Mian compensation of 5,000 yuan (US$800) for scanning her works without permission.^[24]

Copyright

Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc., et al. was a U.S. court case for Google to stop creating and distributing thumbnails of Perfect 10's images in its Google Image Search service, and for it to stop indexing and linking to sites hosting such images. In early 2006, the court granted the request in part and denied it in part, ruling that the thumbnails were likely to be found infringing but the links were not.

Roey Gorodish v. Waze & Google Israel

A class action suit was made in March 2014 by accountant Roey Gorodish against Google Israel and Waze (acquired by Google), claiming intellectual property violation for the use of open-source FreeMap map and code from the open-source RoadMap software,^[25] a project which Ehud Shabtai had contributed for the Windows PocketPC version in 2006.^[26][27][28]

See also

• High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation
• Smartphone patent wars

References