Google shakes liability over Workspace fees for ‘legacy users’

Filed 1w ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge in San Jose granted Google summary judgment against commercial users who claimed the company broke a promise of free access to Workspace, once known as Google Apps and G Suite.

The plaintiffs, self-described 'legacy users' who signed up back in 2008, argued that Google's 2022 policy change unlawfully forced them to start paying for a service they'd used free for over a decade.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts disagreed, finding the original terms only ever bound Google regarding the Standard Edition, not the broader suite it later folded into Workspace, and that Google was free to stop offering the free tier to individual commercial users without terminating service for everyone.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Google spent a decade letting 'free forever' calcify into an assumption before quietly discovering the fine print said no such thing. The ruling is legally sound and utterly unsurprising: when a tech giant's generosity looks permanent, it's usually just patient.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Look Busy · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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