Ask HN: Why wasn't Rapportive ever sued by Google?

10 points·aantix··7 comments

Their plugin replaces the Google Adwords ads with their own content. Google released a competing widget; why not just sue? Wouldn't Google have a case for they are directly interfering with their revenue stream? I am interested in creating my own Gmail plugin but would like to know the legalities behind this first.

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Google couldn't win a lawsuit against a company that sold pieces of cardboard that fit over a monitor to block ads. Same thing for Rapportive, which doesn't remove any ads itself, they simply offer users a tool that happens to do that as part of its functionality.

Also, Google is simply not a very litigious company. They would be much more likely to engage in a technical game of cat and mouse (e.g. make it hard to remove the ads) than sue someone.

I wouldn't be worried about creating something like Rapportive. At worst you're like a company that sells lock picks. The onus is on your customers to stay within the bounds of the law (or ToS).

Also a possibility: They did not sue because the cost of litigation is more than the revenue lost from the widget.

I think it's actually the "users" of rapportive who are breaking the terms of service, not rapportive.

I'm glad Google doesn't apply RIAA-logic, or Rapportive users would be in trouble.

Paul Buchheit (the creator of Gmail) is investor in Rapportive: http://angel.co/buchheit/activity/5dG6n

If Google wanted to block Rapportive they could have just done it with code trivially.

It just didn't bother Google enough for them to do it.

It's not worth the bad publicity for them.

Also, I suspect they don't make a lot of money of those ads altogether.

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