[3] United States vs. 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.
In this case, the FTC found Google liable for misrepresenting "privacy assurances to users of Apple's Safari Internet browser".
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.
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.
[19] In May 2015, in an en banc opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed the panel's decision, vacating the order for the preliminary injunction.
[24] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov defended the large sum of money, as "it is rather filled with symbolism," and stated that "[Google] should not restrict our broadcasters on their platform.
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.
In January 2013, a Chinese court ordered Google to pay Mian compensation of 5,000 yuan (US$800) for scanning her works without permission.
[38][39] The patent allegedly covered use of hash tables with garbage collection and separate chaining in the Red Hat Linux kernel.
The Court heard oral arguments in October 2020 and issued its opinion in April 2021, reversing the Federal Circuit and holding that Google's use of Java APIs was protected by fair use.
A class action suit was filed in March 2014 by accountant Roey Gorodish against Google Israel and Waze (acquired by Google), claiming intellectual property violations for the use of open-source FreeMap map and code from the open-source RoadMap software,[48] a project which Ehud Shabtai had contributed for the Windows PocketPC version in 2006.
[53] In 2017, David Elliot and Chris Gillespie argued before the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals that "google" had suffered genericide.
Officials of Google said it was too financially burdensome and logistically challenging to hand over salary records that the government requested in order to investigate.
[56] In a lawsuit filed January 8, 2018, multiple employees and job applicants alleged Google discriminated against a class defined by their “conservative political views[,] male gender[,] and/or […] Caucasian or Asian race”.
[57] On January 29, 2018, YouTube technical recruiter Arne Wilberg filed a suit accusing Google “of systematically discriminating in favor of job applicants who are Hispanic, African American, or female, and against Caucasian and Asian men.”[58] On August 14, 2017, three former employees of Google have filed a class action lawsuit against the internet company, alleging a pattern of discrimination against women workers, including systemically lower pay than their male counterparts.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, accuses the company of deploying “anticompetitive tactics” to maintain a monopoly on the Android mobile ecosystem.
[65] In 2020, the US Department of Justice and a group of 38 state attorneys general sued Google for monopolizing the search engine market in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
They accused the company of acquiring competitors, locking in clients with its platforms, and exploiting or distorting auction mechanisms for ads.
[67] It has also been accused of paying billions each year to mobile network operators and smartphone manufacturers to ensure that Google's service remains as the default search engine on their devices.
[71] On January 18, 2006, the U.S. Justice Department sought to compel Google to turn over one million web addresses from the company's database and one week's worth of search engine queries absent any personal information.
[72] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the request was intended to help fight Internet pornography and counter legal challenges to the Child Online Protection Act.
Google maintains that their policy has always been to assure its users' privacy and anonymity and challenged the subpoena on the grounds that its trade secrets would be compromised.