Google faces lawsuit alleging data scraping & copyright violations for AI development

A bay area law firm that recently sued San Fransico’s OpenAI is now suing Google accusing the tech giant of scraping data from millions of users without consent and violating copyright laws in order to train and develop its artificial intelligence (AI) products.

Filed by Clarkson Law Firm in a federal court in California, the proposed class action suit also names Google's parent company Alphabet and AI subsidiary DeepMind as defendants. The complaint alleges that Google covertly acquired data from hundreds of millions of Americans, utilising it to train AI models such as its chatbot Bard. Google, Alphabet, and DeepMind have yet to respond to the lawsuit.

Google hit with a lawsuit alleging it stole data from millions of users to train its AI toolshttps://t.co/4slEZj7P4F

— Business Today (@business_today) July 12, 2023

Google's data practices for AI under scrutiny

The lawsuit points to an update in Google's privacy policy that explicitly states the company's use of publicly accessible information to train its AI models and tools. Google's clarification that newer services like Bard fall under this policy has sparked concerns over the use of copyrighted works and personal data, including that of children.

The suit argues that publicly available information has never been intended for unrestricted use and emphasises the value and ownership of personal data.

Tim Giordano, one of the attorneys at Clarkson law firm said:

“Google needs to understand that ‘publicly available’ has never meant free to use for any purpose.”

Tim Giordano

According to Giordano, Google's indexing of online data to support its search engine provides benefits by offering attributed links that can drive engagement and sales.

However, the alleged practice of scraping data to train AI tools creates an altered version of the work, which diminishes the incentive for people to purchase it.

While users may be accepting of their data being used for search and targeted ads, the utilisation of their information for AI training is something they could not have foreseen. In addition to seeking injunctive relief to freeze commercial access and development of Google's generative AI tools, the lawsuit demands unspecified damages and financial compensation for individuals whose data was allegedly misappropriated.

The law firm has already lined up eight plaintiffs, including a minor. The attorneys highlight the distinction between Google's indexing of online data for search engine results and the alleged scraping of data for AI training, arguing that the latter undermines the incentives for people to purchase or engage with original works.

While users have become accustomed to their data being collected for search and advertising purposes, the lawsuit asserts that the use of personal data for AI training was unforeseen.

In addition, Google should prompt its users or ask for permissions like it does in case of data being collected for search and advertising services. Similarly for training AI services Google should send a prompt to users asking if they could use their data for training its AI products.