When you own two-thirds of all Internet search -- as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) does, per comScore Inc. -- you may expect a big bullseye on your back as part of achieving such dominance.
At least, that appears to be the case for Google, which singlehandedly is a kind of lawyers’ relief organization.
There are literally hundreds of suits proceeding against Google, maybe thousands, and they range from the trivial (including a nominee for “worst lawsuit of 2010”) to cases that get at the very heart of what the Internet is and should be in the 21st century.
Memo to incoming Google CEO Larry Page: You might want to investigate just why Google is involved in so many cases, such as the following...
EU vs. Google: Does Google give priority placement to AdWords buyers? This is not a suit yet, but The New York Times reports that the European Union -- as part of ongoing antitrust investigations into Google -- has circulated questionnaires looking for links between buying ads and more visibility in search results. This could get very messy if evidence of links emerges.
Buzzing about Buzz: Does Buzz breach your privacy? A Manitoba man filed suit claiming exactly that. He says he declined enrollment in Buzz, but Google set up a Buzz profile on him anyway, exposing info he deems private to the public. The case is interesting, because aren’t we all Buzz users (and did we volunteer)?
DoJ vs. Google: Most observers are puzzled by the DoJ threat to block Google’s ITA acquisition, but the merger could have a huge effect on travel search, especially regarding air fares.
More bad news on the antitrust front comes from the interest of bulldog lawyer Gary Reback -- who brought considerable grief to Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) over anti-trust issues -- in persuading the DoJ to open broad investigations into what Reback sees as a pattern of anti-competitive actions by Google.
Google vs. US Dept of Interior: A judge blocked a Department of the Interior RFP in early January, after Google alleged that the bidding for a contract worth over $59 million was rigged in favor of Microsoft. Google very much wants to go toe-to-toe against Microsoft in public sector bids, and in this suit Google fired a very loud warning shot across the government’s bow.
Paul Allen vs. Google (and just about everybody else): The Microsoft co-founder’s initial suit was tossed out in August, but in late December his company, Interval Research, was back in court with an amended suit alleging that Google -- along with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), and others -- infringes key patents owned by Interval that govern how news, movies, and more are displayed on Websites. This suit could hit, not just Google, but everybody’s Web experience. Is Allen just a patent troll? Very hard to say, but experts are sure the defendants are in for a long and expensive ride in court before decisions are rendered.
Google and the Pirates: Google recently filed an amicus brief supporting MP3Tunes in its case against music publisher EMI. Michael Robertson, founder of the MP3 site, says, “This will be a defining case about the future of cloud services.”
The World vs. Google Street View: Google’s hoovering up of private info from unsecured WiFi networks while assembling Street View databases has triggered at least eight (count 'em, 8!) class action suits. This will be another long and expensive slog through the judicial system for Google (not to mention the continuing bad press).
Google vs. iLOR: This is an ugly suit that has kicked around the courts in Kentucky since 2007. The plaintiff, a firm that makes software for manufacturer quotes, alleges that Google’s Notebook tools infringe on patents it owns. A Federal Circuit Appeals court recently ruled that Google had not achieved the high level of proof needed to make a label of “frivolous” stick to this suit. Observers see it going to the Supreme Court.
Worst Lawsuit Award: Google made the shortlist in a US Chamber of Commerce selection of candidates for worst lawsuit of 2010. Lauren Rosenberg of Northridge, Calif., used a Google Map while strolling around Park City, Utah, and apparently got hit by a car. So she sued Google.
Having a bullseye on your back can indeed get expensive.
— Robert McGarvey is a widely published author and expert on social media.
SteveGNYC: Legal action can be a weapon against a vulnerable startup. It's foolish of any startup not to have a war chest to battle what the SEC calls litigation in the course of business -- worker suits, trademark suits, etc.
It's a line item on any company's budget. The issue is, it may not have to be a huge line item.
You just have to wonder whether this has ever stopped a company in similar shoes, or just slowed it. Another thought is how many companies incorporate and plan for heavy litigation as either a start-up cost or ongoing business cost in their business plans when first starting up. Sure, there's "Legal" but is there strong conversation about "Well, how about if ... ..." kind of stuff.
Good point dcuperus. The privacy debate is a shared issue among companies like Facebook, Google, or Yahoo and the lawsuit judgement will decide the future of internet ethics.
Could it also be that society is generally more intolerant to these huge firms than the smaller ones? because this is how they end up with most of these frivolous lawsuits as they would let nothing pass with a settlement.
It could also be an investment by smaller firms or individuals to gain some publicity needed to rise in the industry or politics or so.
Very few indeed in relation to the number of issues. But the legal costs were enormous for some firms which had no responsibility at all in relation to the case. And that's the problem. The real issues may be clouded inside the legal conundrum.
I think that press and media coverage may help in this Google issues because the worst thing this ''legal firms'' really want is that their concoctions and contortions be made public. Maybe IE may select some interesting cases and seek participation as friend of the court for the benefit of interested parties in the outside. Meaning us.
When you're headquartered in one of the most litigious nations on earth AND you're making lots of money in areas that haven't been fully legislated, you'd better be prepared. Google does appear to be prepared, and it may even be hiring some of those promising young lawyers you describe, Ramon.
BTW, how many of the lawsuits in the case you mention actually resulted in awards to victims?
The internet is still young. Our legal system is still working out all the bugs and loop holes. Google is on the radar for most legal battles concerning the internet. I think they know this. I just hope they don't under estimate the importance of these legal battles because they will help define internet ethics in the future.
I suppose you couldn't include all of the lawsuits against Google for they reproduce like the famous Tribbles from TOS Star Trek. And indeed, they will continue so...
A sad memory comes to my mind when a great fire affected a big hotel in Puerto Rico. As soon as the next day scores of lawyers from almost everywhere came to the island and started broadcasting their availability to suit almost everyone in sight. Even the then Governor, a great lawyer himself, screamed and denounced this people acting as vultures. (He should knew). Everything on sight was sued: the carpet manufacturers, the soap manufacturers, i.e., whatever was there. A very noted issue was a suit against one of the big manufacturers of vacuum cleaners although no evidence was involving any fault by the machines. When their lawyer arrived they were simply told in court that the manufacturer was suited for the simple reason that the machines were there in some rooms some of which, interestingly, didn't caught fire.
So as soon as we get to the lawyers and the possibility of a suit, nobody really knows what the $%^&! is going on or where all this will end. Most probably there are right now big law firms evaluating law students that may already be involved in research on issues pertaining Google in law school.
This is our system at its insanely best! Nice to be posted on this Robert. Who knows what the next big case be? Maybe I may be inflicting damage to someone by actually choosing to use any other search machine.
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Businesses are cutting the landline tether surprisingly quickly.
"The rise of the cellphone-only worker is happening at lightning speed," wrote David Cameron, president of the IT services firm Rhode Island-based Conduit Systems, in an email.
The drumbeats are loud. Google, reports filter out of Asia, is preparing to manufacture its own Chromebook, to be branded Google and/or Nexus.
The blunt question: Is this dumb or smart on the part of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company?
Hurricane Sandy -- one of the most expensive storms ever, causing an estimated $50 billion in damages -- may have devastated New Jersey and parts of New York. However, it also may turn into the poster child for the why of cloud-based disaster recovery and business continuity services, according to providers, and financial institutions are among the companies most likely to take the plunge.
Call this the ultimate bar brawler question among telephony geeks: Is Skype business-grade quality, or is it best used for calling the folks back in County Donegal on the odd Sunday for free? (See: It's Too Soon to Hang Up on Skype.)
Businesses attempting to stuff the ballot box on Yelp with paid-for favorable reviews will feel the pain of full public disclosure and humiliation. In a blog last week, Yelp made it plain it intended to root out and destroy businesses that sought to buy positive scores.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
Marissa Mayer at Yahoo has come out with her strategy on turning the company around: culture, company, calibration, and compensation. But Yahoo needs to have a technical approach to the mobile cloud opportunity, not a management theory lesson.
Yahoo's new CEO can't go back to what Yahoo was; that's how it got to what it is! Instead she has to look at something that Yahoo has always rejected, which is a relationship with the telcos and cablecos. They'd love a partner in creating service applications.
Some say that exposure to violence in gaming, online video, etc., is creating a violent culture. Tom says it's not that straightforward. Rather than regulate violence, we should understand it better.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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