The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday declined [order list, PDF] to hear and appeal [cert. petition, PDF] by Google in a lawsuit filed by advertisers. The class action lawsuit [CNET report] claims that Google has displayed the companies’ ads on “low quality” websites. The lawsuit accuses [Reuters report] Google of violating California fair advertising laws because it misled advertisers. The court let the lower court decision [opinion, PDF] stand, allowing the lawsuit to proceed. Google argued that such a ruling was incorrect [WSJ report] as the damages must be calculated individually for each advertiser rather than all together. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] decided that such a measure is unnecessary and damages would be awarded based on the average advertiser’s experience.

Google is involved in numerous legal disputes. In May a US jury concluded [JURIST report] that Google was not in violation of copyright laws where it used Oracle’s Java programming language to develop its operating system, Android. The Supreme Court in April denied certiorari [JURIST report] in an appeal from Google against a finding for authors claiming that Google Books violated copyright law by scanning millions of books and placing them within an online search engine. The Fifth Circuit also ruled [JURIST report] in April that Google may not ignore a subpoena by the Mississippi Attorney General. In March, a Moscow arbitration court upheld a ruling against Google [JURIST report] that they broke anti-monopoly laws by abusing their position within the cellular application industry.