Google shakes liability over Workspace fees for ‘legacy users’

Google changed its Workspace policies in 2022, which commercial users claimed forced them to start paying for a previously-free service. A federal judge ruled Google did not breach contract after updating its terms on a suite of business-productivity tools.SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge on Monday shot down Google users’ claims the tech giant broke its promise to early adopters of a once-free service by starting to charge for usage later.Awarding summary judgment to Google in a 17-page ruling, U.S. District P. Casey Pitts said commercial users of Google Workspace — once called Google Apps and G Suite — were not entitled to free access to Workspace after Google transitioned away from a standard edition of the service.“There is no reason to think that an agreement that substantively addresses only the Standard Edition would limit Google’s liability for modifying or suspending the Premium Edition,” Pitt, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote.The commercial users — who say they signed up for Google Workspace in 2008 when it was offered as a free alternative to Microsoft Office — bringing the class action said in their 2023 lawsuit they were still receiving free Google Workspace services as of Jan. 1, 2022, when Google announced plans to eliminate the standard service.The class members — referred to as “legacy users” and led by California proprietor Steve Rabin — argued that “the service” under Google’s new terms referred more broadly to Google’s suites of business- productivity tools, including both the Standard Edition and Premium Edition of Google Apps, and later G-Suite and Workspace. They say charging them for Workspace is a breach of contract and violation of unfair competition law.But Pitts said the users’ arguments didn’t hold up against the plain language of Google’s fee introduction and terms of service.“If the termination clause authorized Google only to ‘terminate the service,’ the clause might require Google to terminate the service as to all users or as to none,” he wrote. “But that is not what the termination clause says. Instead, it enables Google to ‘terminate the provision of … the service.’ In other words, Google may stop providing the Standard Edition to an individual — it need not terminate the service in its entirety.”In December 2012, Google stopped allowing new users to sign up for the standard edition of the early services and instead required any new commercial user to sign up for the paid version of Google’s business-productivity tools available at that time.Google allowed those who had signed up for the standard edition before 2012 to continue using that service for free until 2022, when it changed its standards to free use for non-commercial customers only.“Under Rabin’s interpretation, this provision means that an individual’s continued use of the Standard Edition (e.g., for personal purposes) would constitute consent to Google’s modification of the terms governing the individual’s use of the Premium Edition (e.g. for business purposes),” wrote Pitts. “That is a highly unusual result.”Pitts noted that California law generally requires that contractual clauses limiting liability be narrowly interpreted, and that “the limitation of Google’s liability concerning ‘the service’ does not apply to all of Google’s business-productivity tools.”Pitts ruled that because the class members failed on their breach of contract claim, their violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law claim also fails.“Rabin’s claim under the [Unfair Competition Law]’s ‘unlawful’ prong is expressly premised on his claim that Google breached its contracts with class members,” he wrote. “Rabin appears to acknowledge as much — his opposition to Google’s motion argues that the former claim should survive summary judgment only because, in his view, the latter claim does."In his order, Pitts denied as moot the class members motion for partial summary judgment and granted a consolidated sealing motion.Attorneys representing the class members and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads