WAuthors Guild v. Google was a copyright case heard in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit between 2005 and 2015. The case concerned fair use in copyright law and the transformation of printed copyrighted books into an online searchable database through scanning and digitization. The case centered on the legality of the Google Book Search Library Partner project that had been launched in 2003.
WEpic Games v. Apple is a lawsuit brought by Epic Games against Apple in August 2020 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, related to Apple's practices in the iOS App Store. Epic Games specifically had challenged Apple's restrictions on apps from having other in-app purchasing methods outside of the one offered by the App Store. Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney had previously challenged the 30% revenue cut that Apple takes on each purchase made in the App Store, and with their game Fortnite, wanted to either bypass Apple or have Apple take less of a cut. Epic implemented changes in Fortnite intentionally on August 13, 2020, to bypass the App Store payment system, prompting Apple to block the game from the App Store and leading to Epic filing its lawsuit. Apple filed a countersuit, asserting Epic purposely breached its terms of contract with Apple to goad it into action, and defended itself from Epic's suit.
WGarcia v. Google, Inc., 786 F.3d 733, is an ongoing dispute that arose when 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, a panel of 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. In May 2015, in an en banc opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed the panel's decision, vacating the order for the preliminary injunction.
WGoddard v. Google, Inc., 640 F. Supp. 2d 1193, is a case in which Jenna Goddard ("Plaintiff") alleged that she and a class of similarly situated individuals were harmed by Google ("Defendant") as a result of clicking allegedly fraudulent web-based advertisements for mobile subscription services ("MSSPs"). 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 without leave to amend.
WGoogle, Inc. v. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, Inc., No. 5:03-cv-05340, 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 because it (1) allowed arbitrary advertisers to key their ads to American Blind's trademarks and (2) may confuse search-engine users initially interested in visiting American Blind's website into visiting its competitors' websites.
WHibnick v. Google, Inc. was a class action suit brought by Eva Hibnick, a Harvard Law School graduate, against Google in 2010. The suit accused Google of breaching several electronic communications laws with the launch of their new product Google Buzz. Google Buzz was a social media network that automatically plugged into Gmail.
WJoffe v. Google, Inc. is a federal lawsuit between Ben Joffe and Google, Inc.. Joffe claimed that Google broke one of the Wiretap Act segments when they intruded on the seemingly "public" wireless networks of private homes through their Street View application. Although Google tried to appeal their case multiple times, the courts favored Joffe's argument. Ultimately the Supreme Court declined to take the case, affirming the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Wiretap Act covers the interception of unencrypted Wi-Fi communications.
WPerfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit involving Perfect 10, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc. and Google, Inc. The court held that Google's framing and hyperlinking as part of an image search engine constituted a fair use of Perfect 10's images because the use was highly transformative, overturning most of the district court's decision.
WRocky 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.
WUnited States v. Google Inc., No. 3:12-cv-04177, 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 won in history. 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". 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.
WViacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., No. 07 Civ. 2103, is a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York case in which Viacom sued YouTube, a video-sharing site owned by Google, 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. A motion for summary judgment 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. 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. An appeal was begun, but the parties settled in March 2014.