Search Engines Still Stand Civil Trials

The leading search engines Google, Yahoo and Microsoft can look back at 2007 and sigh with relief. The class-action lawsuit, which was filed back in 2004, and which claims that the companies have earned hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising online gambling sites, reached a settlement.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, which have reached the settlement with the US Department of Justice on December 19, will pay $31.5 million (about two thirds of it paid by Microsoft), but did none have admitted any wrongdoing.

Although the sum paid in the settlement in insubstantial, compared to the amounts allegedly made from the practice over the past decade, the DoJ claims victory. Its intentions and serious pursuit have proved to pay off.

Still, the companies will find themselves in court in the coming year as well. A civil trial is set to begin February 11, as some "believe the agreement with the government does not go far enough," as Reed Kathrein, lead attorney in the case and partner at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro was quoted saying in a press release issued by the law firm.

The lawsuit asks the courts to restrict the potential for similar advertising and profiting to take place in the future. The federal case does not close the door on such cases being brought to the courts at the various states, as this one, in California.

Victory for the prosecutors will be a deterring fine and an admittance of guilt by the search engine companies. The civil complaint also seeks full disclosure of their profits, and these amounts to be directed at education and rehabilitation of gambling addiction.

This is already the case in the recent settlement. Of the sum paid, many millions have gone to benefit the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, will be spent on public service ads and so on.