This tactic worked against Mr. Search

January 10, 2003

LawMeme summarizes the latest developments in the Spam King v. Google suit: Google replies to SearchKing lawsuit

Google's first move is to ask the court to dismiss the action "for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." This is an early motion, and usually quite severe; Google is telling the court that even if SearchKing proves everything it alleges, it still won't have shown that Google acted illegally. It's a fairly appropriate motion to raise in this case, however, precisely because the disputed factual ground is so small. The final ruling is likely to focus on legal issues, rather than factual ones, so there's no need to wait to resolve the basic question: not what Google did, but whether it was wrong.