Jim Hood, Mississippi’s attorney general, had to call a “time out” in his legal battle against the search engine, after Google launched a lawsuit against him. The attorney general has challenged the company to limit 3rd-party information available via its search and advertising services. In response, Google claimed that such a request violates the open principles of the worldwide web. In addition, the company claimed that this demand could be made at the behest of a major movie lobbying firm – everyone knows that the Hollywood studios make attempts to crack down on the distribution of pirated films online.


Jim Hood said he was going to reach out to Google’s legal team in order to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Back in October 2014, the attorney general issued a 79-page subpoena, claiming that the state had reasonable grounds to believe the search engine had violated the Mississippi Consumer Protections Act. He required Google to turn over information about its search engine and sales of illegal drugs, porn and other materials.

Google sued back, claiming that it was an enormously burdensome subpoena. In the first place, the company’s lawyers pointed out that such complaints were not in the jurisdiction of state law. Moreover, Google accused Jim Hood of violating federal law, as he tried to intervene in its search results at the bidding of the MPAA.

Recent media reports confirmed that documents leaked after the Sony hack and open records requests proved the fact that the MPAA had started a lobbying campaign dubbed Project Goliath on behalf of movie studios in order to get attorney generals to challenge the largest search engine in the world with subpoenas and lawsuits.