With every opportunity for innovation or invention that crops up on the internet, there are also opportunities for hacking and scamming. For every new enterprise there is now also a new opportunity for fooling or stealing. So the internet sees a great deal of both creativity and criminality. Few companies are doing more to fight cyber-crime than Google. But the company is not just sitting back and waiting for the bad guys to come to them: it’s also pursuing them through the courts. In this feature, we examine the company’s proactive litigation strategy, with a focus on one recent case that reflects its broader strategy of using litigation to reinforce the integrity of the internet.
Ever since it launched its first search engine, Google has relied on a sprawling array of technical fixes to protect its massive digital empire and the trusting billions of people who use its services every day. But, even with a world-class cadre of cyber-sleuths working round the clock to shore up its digital armoury, the tech giant still struggles to keep one step ahead of the ingenuity of hackers and scammers who prey on user trust for their own criminal gain. That’s why Google has entered its bold new phase in the war against digital criminals: it is going to court.
Legal scholars are watching Google’s innovative litigation behaviour with concern: the stakes are high not just for the company and its users but for the future of the digital world. If Google gets its way in court, it could be creating a new standard for cybersecurity and corporate responsibility.
Just what kind of deterrent is Google’s legal offensive? While lawsuits can carry a steep price for human adversaries, some could contend that they might be more likely to simply drive such activity further into the shadows, making efforts to track and detect it more difficult. But Google’s resolve here reflects a commitment not just to its own services, but also to contribute to a broader collective effort to clean up the internet from fraud and exploitation.
Within the mosaic of Google’s litigation, these cases – many of them very high profile – provide a lens through which to view its strategic litigation priorities concerning the nature of the temporal web, and a reason for its somewhat flagrant disregard for the novelism of US legal order. Google is not just looking to recoup monetary damages in these lawsuits, or to force injunctive relief; it is sending a message that it will not tolerate actions that put user trust at risk or threaten the integrity of the digital economy.
But as Google now wields its legal authority, those ripples are spreading, and other tech giants, as well as many more modest enterprises, are watching and considering whether to follow Google’s lead in filing collective legal assaults against cyber threats. And Google might even catalyse legal and legislative change, continually ratcheting up protections against attackers and scammers.
It’s a long road ahead. As Google fights its way through a series of legal battles against hackers and scammers, the lessons learned from these lawsuits will inform the company’s next moves and perhaps set the tone for a larger discussion about cybersecurity defence. Will Google’s lawsuits eventually make the internet a safer place or will they inspire a dynamic arms race with a nimble-footed enemy? The jury is still out, but one thing is certain: Google will utilise everything in its arsenal to ensure that its users stay safe and that its example sets the standard for digital citizenship going forward.
But before ending our tour of Google’s costly legal battles to stop hackers and scammers in their tracks, it’s worth taking a step back to look at Google in the round: the company’s work in areas spanning leading-edge AI and machine learning to efforts in philanthropy and digital education and literacy. From Google’s products and services, to the cutting-edge innovations made possible by those products and services, to the groundbreaking technologies in the laboratory and the pioneering philanthropic and environmental work in the field, Google and its founders’ influence extends across the entirety of the village that we’ve all become, through our computers and smartphones to Google products and services, every day – to patients, medical professionals and others in the field of health research.
These aggressive defences highlight Google’s commitment to keep the internet safe as a place for opportunity and growth, not a breeding ground for fear and fraud. And as Google fights its legal battles, it continues to be a core player in developing the policy for the future of cybersecurity. This will ensure that the internet remains open and accessible for everyone who uses it, as it is meant to be.
Playing out against this backdrop, Google’s tale is one of first mover advantage, of its willingness to cast itself repeatedly as a reformed corporate villain; and, above all, it’s one of the company’s dogged determination to create a more secure web, one that users have more reason to trust. Google is not done transforming – in fact, it’s hard to imagine where the Google story will end. But one thing’s for certain: wherever it goes, we’re likely to find ourselves following.
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