Contrary to what is happening in Europe, on November 13, 2014, San Francisco Superior Court ruled – once again – in favor of Google’s right to freely order its search results.
In June 2014, the owner of the website CoastNews argued that Google monopolized the search engine business and violated antitrust law. According to the complaint, Google provided false search results by favoring its own paid advertisers and Google-owned companies over non- paying websites such as the one owned by the Plaintiff. CoastNews accused Google of making its small business invisible by unfairly putting it too far down in the search results. This would constitute unfair business practice as well as harm consumers thus entitling Plaintiff to obtain compensation and punitive damages.
In response to the above accusation, Google filed an anti-SLAPP motion against CoastNews. Anti-SLAPP laws in California allow courts to throw out lawsuits at an early stage if they are intended to stifle free speech rights. With its motion Google showed how the Plaintiff’s claims arose from Google’s exercise of its constitutionally protected free speech right. Search results orders and ad placements shall be considered as constitutionally protected speech. Furthermore, the display of search results takes place in a public forum and it is connected with issues of public interests.
According to the Judge, Defendant met its burden of showing that the claims against it arose from constitutionally protected activity consequently shifting to Plaintiff the burden to show a probability that it will prevail on each of its causes of action. However, according to the order, CoastNews was not able to demonstrate its probability of success on the merits and dismissed Plaintiff’s complaint without leave to amend.
As a result, the Court permits Google to keep on organizing its search results as it sees fit under the First Amendment.
Complaint filed on June 17, 2014 is available at http://digitalcommons.law…
Google’ memorandum can be downloaded at http://www.scribd…
Order dated November 13, 2014 is available at http://cdn.arstechnica…
For information: Francesca Giannoni-Crystal
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