Google from Alphabet Inc. has been sued by an early adopter of its Office cloud productiveness software program, who claims the corporate reneged on its promise to present him free lifetime entry to this system.
Google from Alphabet Inc. has been sued by an early adopter of its Office cloud productiveness software program, who claims the corporate reneged on its promise to present him free lifetime entry to this system.
Google Office, previously generally known as Google Apps and G Suite, affords quite a lot of companies, together with Gmail, Calendar, Drive for storage, and Google Docs for content material creation. Among the applications are free for everybody, however enterprise options like customized e mail addresses and Shared Drive storage value further.
Stratford Firm LLC sued on behalf of all of the early adopters who had been lured into utilizing the software program in its early phases, permitting Google to tweak it after which promote it for a price. As a substitute, the Stratford firm mentioned recipients had been promised a free model of Workspace so long as Google provided it.
In 2012, Google started paying new prospects $12 per thirty days to make use of the software program. Then in 2022, Google notified legacy customers that they’d even be charged, although it later excluded non-business customers of the software program.
“Google’s abandonment of the ‘do not be evil’ credo is nicely illustrated on this case,” the Stratford firm mentioned within the grievance, filed Friday in federal courtroom in San Jose. “Google, as the biggest a part of an almost two trillion greenback conglomerate, is breaking a promise to loyal prospects who helped Google develop a worthwhile product as a way to dilute its already huge income.”
The Stratford firm is searching for class-action standing for all early adopters and damages to be decided at trial, however greater than $5 million.
Google didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark despatched after regular enterprise hours.
The case is The Stratford Firm LLC v. Google LLC, 5:22-cv-4547, U.S. District Court docket, Northern District of California (San Jose).
