Rumble Canada, Inc. v. Google LLC
- Beth Freeman
- 5:24-cv-02880
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Rumble Canada v. Google, Judge Freeman granted defendants’ motion to seal limited employee-identifying information.
The order affects the non-party Google and Facebook employees whose names and job titles were identified in the specified portions of the Network Bidding Agreement, as well as the parties seeking and agreeing to the limited redactions.
What happened
Rumble Canada, Inc. sued Google LLC and others. Defendants asked to redact the names and job titles of non-party employees of Google and Facebook from a Network Bidding Agreement attached to their motion to dismiss. Rumble Canada agreed to the request.
Because the agreement supported a motion addressing the substance of Rumble Canada’s claims, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard for sealing. The court found that the employees’ names and titles had minimal relevance to the claims and that the employees’ privacy interests justified protecting the information. The requested redactions covered only a handful of words in the 48-page agreement.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted defendants’ sealing motion for the non-party employees’ names and job titles highlighted in the specified portions of the agreement.
The detailed version
- Rumble Canada, Inc. v. Google LLC · No. 5:24-cv-02880
- Beth Freeman
- Aug. 6, 2024
Background
Defendants filed an administrative motion to seal material in a Network Bidding Agreement submitted as an exhibit supporting their motion to dismiss the complaint. They sought permission to redact the names and job titles of non-party employees of Google and Facebook. Rumble Canada, Inc. stipulated to sealing those names and titles.
Legal standard and analysis
The court held that the agreement was filed in connection with a motion addressing the merits of the plaintiff’s claims. It therefore applied the “compelling reasons” standard rather than the less demanding “good cause” standard. The court found that the names and titles of the non-party employees had minimal relevance to the underlying claims and that the employees’ privacy interests satisfied the compelling-reasons standard. The court also noted that the requested redactions were narrowly tailored and covered only a handful of words in the 48-page agreement.
Disposition
The court granted defendants’ sealing motion as to the names and job titles of non-party employees highlighted in yellow at page 8, Section 1.61, Table 1, and at page 31 of the Network Bidding Agreement submitted with the sealing motion. Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered the limited sealing described in the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.