Client-attorney privilege up for grabs in Google fishing trip

Lawyer warns corporate crime fighters: 'Google will come after you'

Hollywood conspiracy

Having alleged a massive, Hollywood-orchestrated conspiracy, Google needed evidence, and apart from an innocuous line or two yanked from the stolen Sony Pictures hack, it didn’t have any. So Google has gone fishing, filing subpoenas against over 20 media companies in the hope of finding something.

Jenner & Block is a law firm that has worked for the Motion Picture Association of America, and this is why Google hopes to find a smoking gun there.

Google has asked for any documents containing the keywords “Project Goliath”, “Goliath”, “Keystone”, “Project Keystone”, “expanded Goliath Strategy”, “negative Goliath news” and “tangle with Google”. And, any documents that mention the “Stop Online Piracy Act”.

Jenner & Block says this is overly broad. The only documents Google needs to see relate to the Mississippi litigation. The request includes tens of thousands of documents Hood never even saw.

“Because Google asks this court to authorise a fishing expedition at the MPAA’s and Jenner’s expense into documents that cannot meaningfully assist it in prosecuting its litigation in Mississippi, the non-parties respectfully request that the Court deny Google’s motion to compel,” the law firm filed.

Trawls that snare emails between a defendant and third parties are usually fair game, but courts take a dim view of fishing expeditions into the communications between an attorney and his or her client.

They “have a chilling effect on a client’s candour with counsel”, Jenner argues. The MPAA says Google would gain inside knowledge to any future copyright enforcement strategies members have discussed.

Readers of tech news sites may be unaccustomed to finding the MPAA fighting for free speech and seeking to hold multinational corporations to scrutiny. But here we are. Hood merely wants to know if Google has complied with existing law, and kept to its word in a federal settlement it signed.

Check for yourself what Hood is really after, here. (PDF)

“MPAA” and “Hollywood conspiracy” have huge public relations value and are trigger words for activists – and Google knows that.

The case continues. ®