Fraudsters Faked 'Thousands' of Copyright Infringement Claims vs. Rivals, Says Google

Defendants defrauded Google and others by creating over 60 fake accounts so they could submit thousands of fraudulent copyright infringement notices against their competitors, alleged a complaint Monday (docket 4:23-cv-05824) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.

Vietnam-based Nguyen Van Duc, Pham Van Thien and John Does 1-20 “weaponized copyright law’s notice-and-takedown process” and submitted a “barrage of fraudulent copyright takedown requests aimed at removing hundreds of thousands” of their competitors’ legitimate content by having their website URLs removed from Google Search results, alleged the complaint. In addition to the 117,000 URLs identified so far by Google, the defendants submitted “thousands more” notices of alleged copyright infringement targeting over half a million URLs that Google believes will also prove to be fraudulent, it said.

The defendants “appear to be connected with websites selling printed t-shirts, and their unlawful conduct aims to remove competing third-party sellers from Google Search results,” the complaint said. The defendants have “maliciously and illegally exploited Google’s policies and procedures” under the Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA) to “sabotage and harm their competitors” in violation of Google’s terms of service, it said.

The action arises in part under the DMCA but Google’s claims don’t involve assertion of intellectual property rights, said the complaint. The DMCA puts the burden on copyright claimants asserting rights to submit notifications that contain certain specified elements and to attest to compliance with those requirements, it said. “In turn, the DMCA offers online service providers certain protections from copyright liability for content generated or posted by third-party users if, in addition to meeting other conditions, the service providers expeditiously remove or disable access to content identified in compliant notifications,” it said.

Google developed two independent, publicly available mechanisms for copyright owners to submit notifications of copyright infringement, it said. Since the company receives “millions” of takedown notices each year targeting over 600 million URLs, it “must rely—as the DMCA contemplates—on the accuracy of the statements submitted by copyright claimants,” it said.

Under fake names, the defendants used Google’s copyright webform to submit fraudulent takedown requests against third-party online retailers selling t-shirts, the complaint said. “These appear to be the tip of the iceberg,” as Google’s ongoing investigation has identified “likely fraudulent takedown requests” also linked to the defendants targeting over half a million more third-party URLs, it said.

The defendants “falsely purported to represent large companies,” including Amazon, Twitter, NBC News and prominent individuals, sports teams and bands, it said. In one example, defendants claimed to represent Amazon and alleged infringement of a t-shirt with “In 2006 Beyonce Said To The Left, To The Left And My Political Compass Was Born,” the complaint said. In identifying allegedly infringed copyrighted works they claimed to own or represent, defendants in some cases submitted irrelevant third-party URLs or listed images for which they didn’t hold the copyright, it said.

Defendants purported to submit takedown requests on behalf of “MyFrogtees LLC” in connection with “a shoddy website, www.myfrogtees.com, that appears to sell t-shirts in the United States,” said the complaint. “On information and belief,” MyFrogtees isn’t a legal U.S. entity, despite listing an Albuquerque address. The listed address is a single-family home, and the owner at the address “credibly claims to have no knowledge of 'MyFrogtees' or the named Defendants,” it said.

Nguyen and other defendants aren’t just aware that their scheme is “abusive and unlawful,” the complaint said: “They are proud of it.” Nguyen’s Gmail account posted a video describing the scheme on YouTube in November 2022 titled “2022 SEO 3 minutes to take top 1 google by Fake DMCA complaints,” it said.

Google’s system removed a “significant number" of third-party website URLs targeted by the defendants before Google and/or the websites’ owners "figured out what was going on and took appropriate steps to reinstate the URLs,” said the complaint. Many of the third-party sellers are Google Search Ads customers who were damaged, along with Google, by the defendants’ “unlawful and expressly prohibited conduct,” it said.

In what Google described as “the most egregious case,” defendants submitted fraudulent takedown requests from August to December 2022, targeting more than 35,000 website URLs from a Google customer that spends “tens of millions of dollars per year” on search ads, the complaint said. The takedown requests caused the customer’s daily website traffic “to drop significantly during the 2022 holiday season—the most critical time of the year for retailers—resulting in over $5 million in revenue losses” for the customer and its sellers, said the complaint. Google’s corresponding loss was $2 million-$3 million, before it was able to reinstate the targeted URLs, it said.

Google has had to expend “significant resources” to investigate and address the defendants’ wrongdoing, the complaint said. Their conduct “threatens irreparable harm” by undermining the trust the public and customers place in Google, “thereby tarnishing Google’s brand and reputation,” it said.

Google claims misrepresentation of copyright infringement, breach of contract and intentional interference with contractual relations. It seeks an order enjoining the defendants and their agents from submitting takedown requests based on false assertions of rights of ownership to Google; creating or attempting to create Gmail accounts; and using Google products or services to promote their websites or products or to harm any third parties, including Google’s Search Ads customers.

The plaintiff also seeks an order requiring defendants to pay all general, special and actual damages Google has or will sustain as a result of their unlawful acts, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal costs, said the complaint. Efforts to reach the defendants were unsuccessful.