In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation

Opinion

1 2 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 5 SAN JOSE DIVISION 6 7 IN RE GOOGLE ASSISTANT PRIVACY Case No. 19-cv-04286-BLF LITIGATION 8 ORDER GRANTING NON-PARTY 9 APPEN BUTLER HILL INC.’S ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION TO FILE 10 DOCUMENTS UNDER SEAL 11 [Re: ECF No. 237]

12 13 Before the Court is non-party Appen Butler Hill Inc.’s (“Appen”) administrative motion to 14 file under seal documents filed in support of its motion for relief from nondispositive pretrial order 15 of Judge van Keulen (ECF No. 236; “Motion for Relief”). See Motion, ECF No. 237. Appen seeks 16 to seal in its entirety a July 1, 2016 Statement of Work (“Statement of Work”) between Appen and 17 Defendants Google LLC and Alphabet, Inc. (collectively, “Google”). Further, Appen seeks to seal 18 portions of its Motion for Relief that quote from or summarize the Statement of Work. No 19 opposition to Appen’s sealing motion has been filed. 20 Based on the below reasoning, the Court GRANTS the parties’ sealing motions. 21 I. LEGAL STANDARD 22 “Historically, courts have recognized a ‘general right to inspect and copy public records and 23 documents, including judicial records and documents.’” Kamakana v. City and Cnty. of Honolulu, 24 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 25 597 & n.7 (1978)). Consequently, access to motions and their attachments that are “more than 26 tangentially related to the merits of a case” may be sealed only upon a showing of “compelling 27 reasons” for sealing. Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1101–102 (9th Cir. 1 of “good cause.” Id. at 1097. 2 In addition, in this district, all parties requesting sealing must comply with Civil Local 3 Rule 79-5. That rule requires, inter alia, the moving party to provide “the reasons for keeping a 4 document under seal, including an explanation of: (i) the legitimate private or public interests that 5 warrant sealing; (ii) the injury that will result if sealing is denied; and (iii) why a less restrictive 6 alternative to sealing is not sufficient.” Civ. L.R. 79-5(c)(1)(i). Further, Civil Local Rule 79-5 7 requires the moving party to provide “evidentiary support from declarations where necessary.” 8 Civ. L.R. 79-5(c)(1)(ii). 9 II. DISCUSSION 10 Appen’s sealing motion pertains to filings related to non-party Appen’s Motion for Relief. 11 Since that motion is only tangentially related to the merits of the claims in the above-captioned 12 lawsuit, the filings at issue may be sealed upon a showing of “good cause.” See Ctr. for Auto Safety, 13 809 F.3d at 1097. 14 Appen seeks to have the Statement of Work and related portions of Motion for Relief sealed 15 because they contain “extensive detail regarding Appen’s proprietary tools and customized services 16 performed for Google” and “detailed pricing information regarding the services that Appen provided 17 to Google.” See Sealing Motion, ECF No. 237 at 2. Appen provides a declaration from Director of 18 Client Services Birkir Larusson indicating that such information is “non-public and competitively 19 sensitive” to Appen, because it would give insight into Appen’s “proprietary tools and customized 20 workflows” as well as its “price point” in the “fierce” new industry space of “providing tools to help 21 clients improve their artificial intelligence products.” See Larusson Decl., ECF No. 237-1 ¶ 3. The 22 Court finds that Appen has met the “good cause” standard for sealing the information at issue. See, 23 e.g., In re Electronic Arts, 298 Fed.Appx. 568, 569 (9th Cir. 2008) (finding compelling reasons for 24 sealing “pricing terms, royalty rates, and guaranteed minimum payment terms”); Nicolosi 25 Distributing, Inc. v. Finishmaster, Inc., No. 18–cv–03587–BLF, 2018 WL 10758114, at *2 (N.D. 26 Cal. Aug. 28, 2018) (“[C]ompelling reasons exist [to seal three contracts] because they contain 27 proprietary and confidential business information, including potential trade secrets and business 1 follows on Appen’s sealing requests: 2 ECF No. Portions toSeal_ | Ruling 3 237-6 July 1, 2016 Statement | Entirety of document | GRANTED, as of Work between confidential business 4 Appen and Google and financial information of Appen. 5 236 Motion for Relief | Highlighted portions | GRANTED, as from Nondispositive | at: confidential business 6 Pretrial Order of |e 2:2—2:4 and financial Magistrate Judge © = 2:6-2:7 information of Appen. 7 © 4:3-4:8 e 4:12 8 © 4:18-4:23 e 5:7-5:10 9 10 I. ORDER 11 For the foregoing reasons, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Appen’s sealing motion is 12 || GRANTED.

|| Dated: August 26, 2022 kom Ly amar) 15 FO BETH LABSON FREEMAN 16 United States District Judge

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