Top 10 Court Cases Against Google

Google News Court Cases

A Belgian court pled Google guilty of illegally showing parts of articles of some Belgian newspapers on its News Service, ordering it to pay daily fines until it removes unauthorized content. The case has been reheard twice and both times the court said that Google is not an exception to the law. However, Google was not going to pay any fines and never agreed with the verdict.

That case was expected to trigger similar cases in European Union, as too many newspapers expressed resentment when Google used their articles without permission.

Google Street View Court Cases

Switzerland’s privacy watchdog took Google to the court after it had failed to comply with its request to ensure all the people’s faces and other private data shown on Google’s Street View Service are blurred in order to keep personal privacy protected. Google was also requested to inform the residents in advance about its intention to take pictures of their city. Finally Google blurred the faces and put in license plates, adding that all their actions were absolutely legal, but this appeared not be enough to satisfy Switzerland.

A couple from the US was also suing Google for causing them mental suffering after the making pictures of their house available to the public on their Street View Service. They accused the web giant of privacy invasion and diminishing their property (house) value. Google said in return that unless there are any clear expressions of the owners’ will to stay private (like fence or sign), they can go wherever they want and take pictures of whatever they want.

Google Gmail Court Cases

Google has lost the case in Germany and now doesn’t have the right to use "Gmail" trademark there, as the German-born, Monaco-based entrepreneur has registered resembling “g-mail” trademark in Germany 5 years before. The entrepreneur rejected to sell the trademark to Google for $250,000, because he’s more interested in developing his business. He also registered his trademark in Switzerland, Norway and Monaco, so Google can’t operate under that name there as well and uses “Google mail” term instead.

The similar case was heard in UK in 2005, where a small British financial research company IIIR claimed to have been using exactly the same trademark (“Gmail”) for 2 years before Google came to the country. However, the trademark was not patented and IIIR rushed to European Union’s offices to register it. Unlike the German opponent, UK company agreed to sell the name of the service, but asked for tens of millions dollars, which Google decided to reject and switched to using “Google mail”, as in Germany.

Google Orkut Court Cases

The celebrities often sue Google as well, and one of them was Rubens Barrichello, a Formula-1 Brazilian driver. He accused Google of making his fake online profiles available on social network Orkut. Although the final decision of Sao Paulo Court was in favor of Barrichello, his lawyer announced that $500,000 he has got are going to be donated to the charity.

Google YouTube Court Cases

Viacom company, the owner of Paramount Pictures and MTV initiated legal action worth $1 billion against Google saying that its YouTube Service is guilty of copyright infringement. Google reacted quickly by implementing filtering tools making copyrighted content unable to be posted on the site. The court ruled that Google has to disclose to the company all the details about removed video, including user’s logs, which was considered to be an over-reaching demand.

YouTube was also alleged by Frank Peterson, a German composer, of illegal use of his videos and other audiovisual repertoire. He claimed that since he has never assigned any synchronization rights to YouTube, he is entitled to demand Google to remove all the streams of his productions and ask for remuneration. The composer was not alone by suing Google, as the huge part of video, located on YouTube, infringes copyright, so new and new cases constantly arise.

Google Books ?ourt ?ases

It’s been several years when Google first faced its opponents in the court of New York at the hearing of the case concerning creating the global digital library. However, the case is still currently central, as there are 26 interested parties there, all outlining objections. Despite Google offered to create a special fund worth $125m for authors to be able to receive compensation, it seems like nobody will ever allow it to accomplish this project.

The case of the same matter was heard in the French court, but this one ended quickly – Google was demanded to pay €300,000 for violating the copyright law. The case was filed after Google Books Service had digitized French books from US libraries without permission.

Indian publishers also tried to move court against Google for illegal scanning Indian books without any authorization – whether for value or for free. However, in India Google and publishers arrived at a settlement instead of sending the suit to trial.

Google Earth Court Cases

"The Google threat" term was used at the hearing of the case against Google Earth Service in India. The service was alleged to be the tool used in deadly attacks on Mumbai, thus helping terrorists. In the Indian case, Google Earth provided images clearly showing the location of India's atomic research facility in detail, which was called "aid terrorists in plotting attacks."

The similar cases are the matter of worry for all other countries. For example, the buildings inside the camp of British base in Iraq were clearly seen on the pictures made at Google Earth. This time Google replaced the pictures with those taken before the base was built.

Google Privacy Rules Court Cases

3 employees of Google Italy has got 6-months imprisonment sentence, as the Court of Milan ruled. It pled them guilty of allowing to make a video with a disabled person harassed available online on Google Video Service. Google confirmed the intention to appeal the ruling.

Google Search Court Cases

Xerox Corp. accused Google of infringing the company's patents concerning Internet search. The company asked the court to prevent Google from using their technology in future and demanded compensation for using patented technology of generating queries and integrating information. Google declared they don’t believe they are infringing the patents and confirmed the intention to defend.

Another case related to searches was filed by Metropolitan International Schools company, who accused Google to be liable for showing a defamation information n its search results. However, the UK court has ruled that Google is not responsible for the other site’s content, as it only facilitates the access to it, but do not publish it directly.

Google Adwords and Adsense Court Cases

Daniel Jurin, California entrepreneur, brought a lawsuit against Google related to its AdWords program. He accused Google of false advertising and trademark infringement. However, a federal judge has dismissed his case, ruling that Google doesn’t sell keywords, just ad space.

Aaron Greenspan also sued Google for terminating his AdSense account with no reason and no money paid. When asked on the hearing about the reason for the account to be canceled, the Google’s representative said they have a right to terminate any publisher for any reason whenever they want. The judge asked if the reason was the plaintiff’s eye color and ruled in favor of Greenspan.

Google is now facing ten similar cases concerning AdWords and infringing trademark. No clear decisions were announced by the courts yet.