Yahoo and Google Case Dismissed

December 3, 2008

A recent court case that was filed in California alleging that Yahoo and Google were somehow responsible for online gambling losses has been dismissed. The lawsuit was filed by online gambling players who had lost more than $100,000 who said that the sites were responsible for the online gambling ads that were displayed on their search engines. They said that they were liable and that they should have to pay them for their losses.

However, a California Superior Court Judge ruled against the lawsuit, and stated that the Communications Decency Act excused the search engines from being responsible for the online gambling losses. They said that they were not liable for the �words or actions of third parties� that choose to use the Google or Yahoo search engine. The two sites did at one point allow online gambling ads on their sites, but now they do not.

The second part of the lawsuit wanted to keep the search engines from being able to accept ads from online gambling companies. The judge said that as they no longer do this already, there was no point in passing an injunction against it. Google accepts online gambling ads for their UK site, but not for their US one.

Both companies had already negotiated with the US Department of Justice earlier this year to pay a $31.5 million fine with Microsoft. They all settled their charges that alleged that they had promoted illegal online gambling sites. In this case the CDA did not help them as it does not refer to the federal government.




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