A suit, filed below by Seungjin Kim in Washington, DC, claims 10 billion dollars in damages from Google, Inc after the search giant allegedly closed several of Kim's Google accounts for reasons unspecified. Of course there's a very slim chance this case goes anywhere (although with their current market cap of 397.21 billion dollars, Google could throw Kim a couple of bills without breaking a sweat).
It appears Kim had a developer account he was using to create religious apps with and feels Google is violating his freedom of religion by closing his accounts.
Read the whole complaint here.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
A Jehovah's Witness Suing Google for 10 Billion Dollars
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 25 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:11PM
He doesn't have "freedom of religion" in private dealings.
I've met plenty of Christians who only want to do business with other Christians. That is totally legal.
Unless they discriminated against him in housing or hiring, he probably has no protections.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:22PM
I was just going to say that.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the U.S. that just because we have the freedom to say whatever we want, practice whatever legitimate religious belief we want, and carry guns means that everyone else has to give us that right. Nope. If you're on my turf, I can tell you to shut your trap, my evil cat is the only deity who shall be worshipped, and you can stay outside if you insist on always carrying your guns with you.
There are a couple exceptions but I don't think Google will fall into it. If Google were performing some service under some government contract and what he is accusing Google of doing occurred during the performance of this service then he might have a case. Also, if Google were like the landline phone companies and possessed a government-granted monopoly, he also would have a case.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:22PM
Yeah, the summary doesn't say it but the filing is so religion-focused that it is barely coherent. This is a non-story.
What would make for a good story would be if someone sued google for closing their account under the premise that by letting google spy on them for profit, that there had been an exchange of value and that google had obligations beyond "it's free so we can do whatever we want."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:58PM
> I've met plenty of Christians who only want to do business with other Christians. That is totally legal.
and totally not Christian, reason left as an exercise for the reader.
And this guy, 10 billion dollars of damage? this is called "greed". Greed makes you automatically not Christian, which are defined by behavior (Mt. 21:28-31), not by the way they call themselves.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:46PM
The standard is higher for public corporations. Public corporations are obligated not to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or religion.
So yeah, the mom'n'pop can refuse your custom if you're not Christian if they want, but not Google.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Tramii on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:23PM
So, it appears that his argument is as follows:
1) Creating and distributing a religious app is the same as door-to-door religious solicitation
2) Google has stopped him from distributing his religious app
3) Therefore, Google has infringed upon his religious freedom
This makes a few incorrect assumptions:
1) AFAIK, there is nothing saying you have the right to door-to-door religious solicitation. Certainly there is no law preventing it, but it's not a guaranteed freedom. I can put up a sign that says "No trespassing" and you can not longer come up to my house and try to share your religious convictions with me.
2) He refers to the First Amendment to the Constitution which states that "Congress shall make no law..." It doesn't say anything about Google. They could ban all religious apps if they wanted to.
Frankly, the guys sounds nuts to me.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:14PM
... but Google has not sopped him from distributing his religious app; there are other channels for Android. He may have better luck with Apple.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:38PM
Sorry, read TFA ... not Android, but Google Apps. There are *lots* of other channels.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:29PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:53PM
> Reminds me of the old days of n.a.n-a.e, when spammers used to whine that spam filters were infringements of their 1st amendment rights.
Lots of anti-gay-marriage people were quick to cite the 1st amendment when Brandon Eich was ousted. Sure some people made other claims about it, but there was a hell of a lot of "Free speech!!!" being thrown around. And as we all know, Eich spending money was just speech. [amendmentgazette.com]
(Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:24PM
Yea, the weird thing was that Eich's speech was protected. But it was protected by California state law [vtzlawblog.com], not by the First Amendment.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:19PM
Actually, several U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the years guarantee that you have the right to do door-to-door solicitation. (Don't tempt me or I'll dig them up!) However, if someone doesn't want you coming onto their property to solicit them, you are obliged to honor that demand so you are right on that point.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bucc5062 on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:26PM
Is there a box on the back pages for Bat Shit Crazy Filing?
"Plaintiff has discovered that Defendant (Google) has infringed religious freedom in U.S. history, Pilgrim Fathers."
What the hell does that even mean? That somehow Google went back in time and infringed upon the religious freedoms of the Pilgrims or has Google actually been in business for that long and they only got outed by the Web.
Another tune...
"And Defendant deleted Plaintiff's religious Apps force" (emphasis mine). What, force?
"And anointed ones are masters of this religion..." Hell even his biblical cites don't make sense. My God, if it is this easy to sue Google for 10,000,000,000, I am fully prepared, as an anointed one, to sue for .... ummm ....430,000 dollars (I have my reasons for the price). Better open my new bank account.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @07:57PM
I used to work for the state affiliate of the ACLU. Trust me, that complaint is only average on the bat-shit crazy levels. There is probably a language barrier that adds to the incomprehensibleness. The truly crazy cross a sort of uncanny valley in terms of your ability to understand them. The premises are all messed up but the logic is spotless; they can be so disturbing that I'd literally just have to go on a half-hour break after reading one to straighten myself out. To be even close to one of those, this complaint would have been a lot more detailed and specific in the systemic ways Google is out to get them.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:58PM
Please, oh please, more details. Without breaking confidences of course.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday July 11 2014, @01:19AM
Generally speaking, what happens to the many nutjob lawsuits that occur in the US every day:
1. The defendant is notified.
2. The defendant files a really short (1 page or so) motion to dismiss that basically says "Your Honor, plaintiff is just plain nuts."
3. The judge dismisses the case the next day, and maybe gets a good laugh out of the proceedings if the plaintiff is really creative.
It's easy to sue for whatever number you like. The harder part is making enough of a case to get past the pretrial stage. So feel free to sue Google for (Dr Evil pinky) 100 billion dollars!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:35PM
While I don't agree with any religion, I won't deny them their freedom to worship.
I just wish they would extend to me(and others like me) the same level of rights they have, that I don't have.
They forget that to have 'freedom of religion', you ALSO have to have 'freedom FROM religion'.
Freedom of religion does not mean just for your religion. It means freedom for ALL religions, and freedom From religion.
I'm sick and tired of them trying to shove their religion down my unwilling throat, whether by rules, regulations, laws, etc.
Just stop it. Really.
We tried theocracy in the west once before. Remember that time period known as 'the Dark Ages'? That was it; didn't work too well except for the ruling 1%. ;-)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AnythingGoes on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:24PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kristian on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:31PM
I'm not arguing with your stuff about religion, but the dark ages being a particularly bad time is revisionist history. Medieval Europeans developed a ton of technology (especially in agriculture) that the Romans could only have dreamed of. You might find this interesting: http://qr.ae/YBFnS [qr.ae]
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the individual sender and not those of Kristian Picon.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 11 2014, @08:06PM
Yes, a bunch of technology was developed during the Dark Ages. This doesn't mean he's wrong. Most people in Europe were essentially slaves...except that it was illegal to sell them. And it was a lot less than 1% that did well in that environment. Sometimes, if your local lord, and HIS lord were moderately enlightened, it was as ok as the technology level allowed. More usually they stole all that was legal and a bit more. (After all, who was going to call them on it?) There's a good reason that banditry became a fine art, and it's because survival style living in the woods while being hunted by the lords men was a little bit better than living as a serf. In other places this wasn't quite true.
P.S.: England was one of the relative bright spots, especially before 1066. Being an island limited the incursions. You still got viking conquerors, etc., but it was relatively safe, so there wasn't as much need for a strong military. The development of the longbow also helped. France and Germany, by contrast, were terrible. Norway wasn't so good either, but at least they exported most of the most troublesome second sons and their henchmen. For some reason the Irish ended up in intercine conflict. Possibly because of no strong central government. (Keep that in mind when designing your ideal society.) Occasionally, when there was a strong "High King" Ireland was more peaceful and prosperous than Britain. Then they'd get a weak High King, and drop back into warring factions.
There were very good reasons to call that period the Dark Ages. But in addition to the horse collar, they invented plate steel and longbows and "The divine right of kings" and lots of other wonderful things. Longbows don't really deserve that cynical remark, because they caused the maintenance of a large populace that was relatively free. You need to train for years to be really good with the longbow. Perhaps longer than a knight needs to train. But the materials to make and maintain one are rather cheap, if you live in a forested area.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:04PM
Maybe this guy should've read the EULA. I'm sure there's something along the lines we can shut off all your shit for any reason or no reason at all. They didn't give a reason, nor will they, because they dont have to. This guys fucked.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1) by chewbacon on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:12PM
Can anyone else imagine him doing the Dr. Evil lip-touch gesture when demanding $10 billion?
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:06PM
No, because taking one look at this article in itself and his grasp of the english language tells me he'd probably poke himself in the eye on accident.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @12:29AM
Someone at Google thought it was related to soul searching?
(Score: 2) by toygeek on Friday July 11 2014, @08:52PM
This persons actions are not founded in logic and his reasoning for claiming copyright is in itself unfounded. The legal entity of Jehovah's Witnesses that owns copyright does not extend legally to this person or any other person claiming to be anointed as this person does. Furthermore, those who say they are anointed are not "Masters" of the religion! That is ridiculous and is not part of our doctrine. I think what we have here is someone who has associated with Jehovah's Witnesses and has taken the name and just picked and chosen what they want to believe.
Furthermore, Jehovah's Witnesses have taken numerous religious freedom cases to the Supreme Court (and won) via their own official channels (we have a Legal dept). The fact that he has gone outside this arrangement is further proof.
Last but not least, the only official website and Internet presence of Jehovah's Witnesses is http://www.jw.org/ [jw.org] and nothing else. If there is a legal action to be taken, it is generally discussed in an article here: http://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/ [jw.org]
This persons lawsuit is conspicuously missing.
There is no Sig. Okay, maybe a short one. http://miscdotgeek.com