A California judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Google that alleged the so-called “loot boxes” found in some video games on free-to-play Google Play apps constituted illegal gambling under California law.
The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit had claimed that in-game purchases on games available through the Google Play store with no age restrictions allowed children to gamble. The loot boxes contain items of value, but that value is not revealed until the boxes are purchased and opened. The lawsuit claimed they were therefore illegal under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act (CDA) of 1996.
Google attorneys had countered that the company is immune from liability under Section 230 of the CDA, and that the plaintiffs’ key premise that loot boxes are illegal gambling was without merit. Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted Google’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis of the CDA claim, without ruling on the merits of the case with respect to loot boxes.
According to the decision, the court decided to “dismiss the complaint on immunity under Section 230 of the CDA, with leave to amend, and that it might defer to a later stage of the proceedings the question of whether loot boxes constitute illegal gambling devices.”
The court found that Google is entitled to Section 230 immunity to the plaintiffs’ claims. As a result, “Google cannot be held liable for merely allowing video game developers to provide apps to users through the Google Play store, as ‘providing third parties with neutral tools to create web content is considered to be squarely within the protections of § 230.’”
The decision may leave the developers of games with loot boxes liable to future claims concerning their legality.
