A lawsuit filed last year against a number of search engines concerning their displaying of gambling related ads has been given the go ahead by a San Francisco court.
The lawsuit was filed during August of 2004 and names a number of search engines, Google and Yahoo included, as being responsible for financial losses the litigant(s) suffered by following a search ad for gambling. Yahoo and Google stopped displaying online casino ads in April of 2004.
I repeat: these people are suing the search engines because they displayed ads (at one time) for online casinos. The people responsible for the lawsuit indicate because they lost money at these gambling houses, the search engines are at fault for displaying ads…
The green light was given by a San Francisco when a judge threw out a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, indicating the search engines and other sites (Yahoo, Google, Overture, Ask Jeeves, LookSmart, AltaVista, Terra Lycos, Jupiter, FindWhat, Kanoodle, Business.com, and Sex.Com) named in the filing could be liable for the litigant loses, sounding yet another death knell for personal responsibility.
Ira Rothken, an attorney for plaintiffs, had these comments in a press release, “We are pleased that the Court denied the search engine defendants’ motions to dismiss and strike allegations and we are optimistic that the Court will find that the defendants were involved in an unlawful business activity when they actively advertised for a fee illegal Internet gambling and that the Court will enjoin such activity.”
No trial date has been revealed as of this time.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
