4 ms·

This bit from the judge's ruling underscores how ridiculous the lawsuit is: > In addition, at oral argument, Plaintiff did not represent that if given leave to

by jonas21 11y ago

This bit from the judge's ruling underscores how ridiculous the lawsuit is: > In addition, at oral argument, Plaintiff did not represent that if given leave to amend she could allege that had she known the second reCAPTCHA word was used to assist Google with its other services she would not have completed the reCAPTCHA. To the contrary, counsel represented that he had not asked Plaintiff and he did not know what she would say. (Dkt. No. 60 at 20:23-25.) Such question, of course, should have been asked and answered before this lawsuit was filed and pursued in two states. Regardless, it defies common sense that the answer would be yes. [1] http://boothsweet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Google-Order-Granting-Dismissal.pdf http://boothsweet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Google-Orde...

pbnjay 11y ago
This. Fraud generally requires that the victim rely on the "fradulent" statement to decide to move forward (e.g. solving the captcha). So even if you assume that the terms "free" and "security" were intentionally meant to deceive, you'd have to prove that the user would not have otherwise signed up for Gmail if those labels had been different. The fact that they didn't cover this important point is ridiculous.
- will_brown 11y ago
  Just playing devil's advocate, but look at the UI. The box I saw says "CAPTCHA" and "type these two words". So the argument for fraud would be that 50% of words Google solicited under the guise of CAPTCHA were actually used for the sole economic benefit of Google's other services. Maybe on a count for fraud the plaintiff's can't prove that they would not have created a Google account having known the 2nd word was not for CAPTCHA; however, the Plaintiffs could certainly prevail on a unjust enrichment claim. As the company who invented the anti-trust defense "competition is only a click away", Google should equally be capable of acknowledging there in absolutely no burden on Google to create 2 boxes for new users, one identified as CAPTCHA, and the other as a crowd-sourced word to be used for Google's other services.

by jonas21 11y ago

pbnjay 11y ago

This. Fraud generally requires that the victim rely on the "fradulent" statement to decide to move forward (e.g. solving the captcha). So even if you assume that the terms "free" and "security" were intentionally meant to deceive, you'd have to prove that the user would not have otherwise signed up for Gmail if those labels had been different. The fact that they didn't cover this important point is ridiculous.

will_brown 11y ago
Just playing devil's advocate, but look at the UI. The box I saw says "CAPTCHA" and "type these two words". So the argument for fraud would be that 50% of words Google solicited under the guise of CAPTCHA were actually used for the sole economic benefit of Google's other services. Maybe on a count for fraud the plaintiff's can't prove that they would not have created a Google account having known the 2nd word was not for CAPTCHA; however, the Plaintiffs could certainly prevail on a unjust enrichment claim. As the company who invented the anti-trust defense "competition is only a click away", Google should equally be capable of acknowledging there in absolutely no burden on Google to create 2 boxes for new users, one identified as CAPTCHA, and the other as a crowd-sourced word to be used for Google's other services.