Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-03751/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-03751-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

---

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS 

 

GABRIELA ROJAS-LOZANO, * 

 * 

 Plaintiff, * 

 * 

 v. * 

 * Civil Action No. 15-10160-MGM 

GOOGLE, INC., * 

 * 

 Defendant. * 

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANT’S 

MOTION TO DISMISS OR IN THE ALTERNATIVE, TO TRANSFER 

(Dkt. No. 12) 

August 12, 2015 

MASTROIANNI, U.S.D.J. 

I. INTRODUCTION

 Gabriela Rojas-Lozano (“Plaintiff”) brings this putative class action against Google Inc. 

(“Defendant”) for claims arising out of her registration for Google’s free Gmail service. Specifically, 

Plaintiff alleges that during the signup process she was required to complete a “reCAPTCHA,” 

which is a process that requires the user to decipher words or numbers displayed as distorted 

images, usually to ensure that a human is accessing the website rather than an automated computer 

program. According to Plaintiff, Defendant’s reCAPTCHA included two images, the first of which 

it utilized for legitimate security purposes, but the second of which Defendant utilized in order to 

have the user transcribe the image for Defendant’s profit. Plaintiff asserts two claims based on this 

allegation: unfair and deceptive business practices in violation of M.G.L. c. 93A (Count I), and 

unjust enrichment (Count II).1

 

 

1 Count I is asserted on behalf of Plaintiff and a “Massachusetts Class,” consisting of “[a]ll persons who have responded 

to a reCAPTCHA prompt in order to access a website or certain features of a website while they were Massachusetts 

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Defendant has filed a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, to transfer.2 Defendant 

contends that Plaintiff’s claims are governed by enforceable forum selection and choice of law 

provisions contained in the “Terms of Service” Plaintiff agreed to upon signing up for the Gmail 

service. These provisions state the laws of California apply and that any claims must be brought in 

the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California. Thus, Defendant argues, the court 

should transfer this case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). In the alternative, Defendant asserts Plaintiff’s claims should be 

dismissed because Plaintiff may not bring a 93A claim under California law and unjust enrichment is 

not a cause of action under California law. For the following reasons, the court concludes transfer 

of this action to the Northern District of California is warranted in light of the forum selction clause 

and therefore will allow Defendant’s Motion to Transfer. (Dkt. No. 8.) 

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff alleges the following facts. In August of 2014, Plaintiff, a resident of Williamstown, 

Massachusetts, signed up for a new Gmail account through Defendant’s Gmail service. (Compl. ¶ 

8.) Defendant is a Deleware Corporation that maintains its headquarters in Mountain View, 

California. (Id. ¶ 9.) “As a condition to creating a new Gmail account, [Defendant] required 

[Plaintiff] to respond to a reCAPTCHA prompt3 by typing two words that were displayed to 

 

residents.” (Dkt. No. 1, Compl. ¶¶ 31, 48.) Count II is asserted on behalf of Plaintiff, the Massachusetts Class, and a 

“Nationwide Class,” consisting of “[a]ll persons who have responded to a reCAPTCHA prompt in order to access a 

website or certain features of a website while they were United States residents.” (Compl. ¶¶ 32, 53.) Because Plaintiff 

has not yet sought to certify either class, only Plaintiff’s individual claims are presently before the court. 

2 Despite the title of Defendant’s motion, it has conceded that the court should first decide whether to transfer the 

action and then, only in the event the court declines to transfer, decide whether to dismiss the case. 

3 Plaintiff explains that “[a] ‘CAPTCHA’ is a website security feature that requires a website user, before accessing a 

website or certain features of a website, to manually type letters and/or numbers that are displayed to the user in a 

distorted image” and that “CAPTCHA is an acronym for ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers 

and Humans Apart.’” (Compl. ¶ 13.) 

The stated purpose of CAPTCHA is to ensure that website users are human beings rather than an 

automated program that may not be accessing a website for legitimate reasons. That is, because 

automated programs are generally unable to decipher distorted images of texts . . . but human users can 

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[Plaintiff] as two distorted images.” (Id. ¶ 8) “The second of those two words served no security 

purpose; the sole purpose of the second word was to require [Plaintiff] to read and transcribe the 

word for [Defendant’s] use and benefit.” (Id.) 

Specifically, Defendant uses the reCAPTCHA platform “to transcribe scanned images of 

books and newspapers, and also to decipher addresses found in images captured as part of 

[Defendant’s] Street View project.” (Id. ¶ 20.) Defendant does this because its technology often 

cannot decipher the image accurately. (Id. ¶ 21.) Thus, Defendant uses humans through its 

reCAPTCHA prompt to decipher these images for free; when multiple users provide the same 

transcription of the same scanned image, Defendant then updates its transcription of the source. 

(Id. ¶¶ 22-23.) Defendant profits from this process because third parties, such as the New York 

Times, pay it to transcribe the scanned images of archived versions of its texts; Defendant also 

profits from its owns digitization of books which it offers in electronic format through Google 

Books and from advertising revenue it obtains from its various websites that make available to the 

public Defendant’s digitization of scanned images. (Id. ¶¶ 24-26.) Plaintiff received no 

compensation for transcribing the second word, and Defendant does not disclose to users that it is 

profiting from their time and effort. (Id. ¶¶ 8, 27.) Plaintiff therefore alleges that Defendant, “in 

essence, operates a highly profitable transcription business built upon free labor, which it deceptively 

and unfairly obtains from unwitting websites users, in violation of their rights as consumers, who are 

offered no choice but to transcribe words for the sole purpose of enriching [Defendant].” (Id. ¶ 29.) 

In support of its motion, Defendant has submitted a declaration from Wei Liu, a Product 

Manager familiar with Defendant’s reCAPTCHA operations, as well as screens shots showing the 

 

typically decipher distorted images, a CAPTCHA prompt can distinguish real human beings from 

automated programs, preventing the latter from accessing all or parts of websites that use the 

CAPTCHA service. 

(Id.) Defendant’s CAPTCHA platform is known as “reCAPTCHA” and “is the dominant CAPTCHA provider and has 

been widely used on popular website including Facebook, Twitter, TicketMaster, CNN, and CraigsList, as well as 

Google’s own websites including Gmail.” (Compl. ¶ 16.) 

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process for signing up for Gmail and a copy of the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, in 

effect in August of 2014, which users were required to agree to in order to complete the Gmail 

signup process.4

 (Dkt. No. 12-1, Declaration of Wei Liu (“Liu Decl.”), Exs. A-C.) The screen shots 

show a webpage entitled “Create your Google Account.” (Liu Decl., Ex. A.) The webpage requires 

a user signing up for Gmail to provide his or her first and last name; choose a username and 

password; and provide a birthday, gender, mobile phone number, and current email address. (Id.) 

Below those boxes, the webpage states “Prove you’re not a robot,” displays an image, and then 

requires the user to “Type the text.” (Id.) Below this reCAPTCHA prompt, the webpage requires 

the user to click a box stating “I agree to the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy” before 

the user may click “Next step” to continue the signup process. (Id.) Both the Terms of Service and 

Privacy Policy are available to the user as a hyperlink; that is, if the user clicks on those words, the 

actual Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are brought up on a separate screen for the user to 

review. (Id.) 

The Terms of Service include a choice of law provision and a forum selection clause which 

reads: 

The laws of California, U.S.A., excluding California’s conflict of laws rules, will apply 

to any disputes arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services. All claims 

arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services will be litigated exclusively in 

the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and you and Google 

consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts. 

 

4 The court agrees with Defendant that the affidavit and Terms of Service are admissible for purposes of a motion under 

28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which is an evidentiary motion under which Defendant bears the burden of proof. See Coady v. 

Ashcraft & General, 223 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2000) (“The burden of proof rests with the party seeking transfer . . . .”); see 

also New York Marine & General Ins. Co. v. Lafarge North America, Inc., 599 F.3d 102, 114 (2d Cir. 2010) (party 

moving for a transfer of venue has the burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that transfer is warranted); 

McEvily v. Sunbeam-Oster Co., 878 F. Supp. 377, 345 (D.R.I. 1994) (explaining that “[p]arties must state with 

particularity, by way of proof or affidavit, what witnesses are to be called and what the nature of their testimony and the 

extent of their inconvenience will be” for purposes of deciding the convenience of the witnesses prong regarding 

motions to transfer under § 1404(a)). Defendant also asserts that the Terms of Service “are subject to judicial notice in 

support of a motion to dismiss, under both Ninth and First Circuit law, pursuant to the incorporation by reference 

doctrine,” citing Rubio v. Capital One Bank, 613 F.3d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir. 2010) and Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3-4 

(1st Cir. 1993). Plaintiff has not argued otherwise, but the court need not resolve this issue since it agrees that transfer is 

warranted in this case and, thus, does not address Defendant’s alternative argument for dismissal. 

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(Id., Ex. B.) The Terms of Service define “Services” as “our products and services.” (Id.) In 

support of Defendant’s transfer request, which both parties concede should be decided before the 

motion to dismiss, Defendant argues that the forum selection clause applies to Plaintiff’s complaint 

and, as such, this case should be transferred to the Northern District of California. 

 

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

 “For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may 

transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.” 28 

U.S.C. § 1404(a). “Where a plaintiff has contractually agreed to a specific venue by means of a 

forum selection clause, a court may enforce this agreement by granting a motion to transfer under 

28 U.S.C. § 1404(a).” Lease America.Org, Inc. v. Rowe Intern. Corp., --- F.Supp.3d ---, 2015 WL 

1442573, at *1 (D. Mass. Mar. 31, 2015) (citing Atlantic Marine Const. Co., Inc. v. U.S. Dist. Court 

for W. Dist. of Texas, 134 S.Ct. 568, 575 (2013)). “[A] forum-selection clause should ‘be given 

controlling weight in all but the most exceptional circumstances. In the vast majority of cases when a 

forum-selection clause is included, a § 1404(a) motion to transfer will be allowed.’” Id. (citing Kebb 

Management, Inc. v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 59 F.Supp.3d 283, 287 (D. Mass. 2014)). 

“[A] court evaluating a defendant’s § 1404(a) motion to transfer based on a forum-selection 

clause should not consider arguments about the parties’ private interests.” Atlantic Marine, 134 

S.Ct. at 581. “When parties agree to a forum-selection clause, they waive the right to challenge the 

preselected forum as inconvenient or less convenient for themselves, or their witnesses, or for their 

pursuit of the litigation.” Id. 

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IV. ANALYSIS

 Forum selection clauses will be enforced “provided they have been reasonably 

communicated and accepted and if, considering all the circumstances, it is reasonable to enforce the 

provision at issue.” Ajemian v. Yahoo!, Inc., 987 N.E.2d 604, 611 (Mass. App. Ct. 2013) (citing 

Jacobson v. Mailboxes Etc. U.S.A., Inc., 646 N.E.2d 741, 743 (Mass. 1995)). “The burden is on 

[Defendant] to demonstrate that the forum selection and limitations clauses in the [Terms of 

Service] were reasonably communicated and accepted, but the plaintiffs bear the ‘substantial burden’ 

to demonstrate that enforcement of the forum selection clause is unreasonable in the 

circumstances.” Id. (citing Melia v. Zenhire, Inc., 967 N.E.2d 580, 595 (Mass. 2012)). “Reasonably 

conspicuous notice of the existence of the contract terms and unambiguous manifestation of assent 

to those terms by consumers are essential if electronic bargaining is to have integrity and credibility.” 

Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 306 F.3d 17, 35 (2nd Cir. 2002). 

 Here, Plaintiff signed up for a Gmail account and agreed to Google’s Terms of Service and 

Privacy Policy. Specifically, Plaintiff was required to check a box next to the text, “I agree to Google 

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.” This “clickwrap” agreement reasonably communicated the 

terms, and by clicking the box Plaintiff entered into a valid and enforceable contract. See Rudgayzer 

v. Google, Inc., 986 F.Supp.2d 151, 156 (E.D.N.Y. 2013) (“Google requires all users, after seeing a 

screen listing the terms or a link to the terms, to agree to the terms of use before creating an email 

account . . . . Agreements such as this—that require a user’s assent as a prerequisite for using the 

services and are known as ‘clickwrap’ agreements—are considered reasonably communicated.”) 

The Terms of Service contained a forum selection clause which reads: 

All claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services will be litigated 

exclusively in the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and 

you and Google consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts. 

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(Liu Decl., Ex. B.) This action originates from Plaintiff’s response to the reCAPTCHA prompt 

during the process of creating her Gmail account. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s claims are plainly 

governed by the forum selection clause. 

 Granted, Plaintiff argues the Terms of Service do not apply to reCAPTCHA, as a reasonable 

user would not understand reCAPTCHA to be a Google service. However, Plaintiff does not and 

cannot contend that the Terms of Service do not apply to her use of Gmail. Moreover, the forum 

selection clause is written in broad terms, covering all claims “arising out of or relating to” 

Defendant’s products or services. See Bagg v. Highbeam Research, Inc., 862 F. Supp.2d 41, 45 (D. 

Mass. 2012) (“The First Circuit has interpreted the term ‘relating to’ in forum selection clauses to be 

very broad.” (citing Huffington v. T.C. Group, LLC, 637 F.3d 18, 22 (1st Cir. 2011) (stating that the 

term “relating to” is “broader in scope than the term ‘arising out of’”))). And, as Plaintiff notes, 

response to the reCAPTCHA prompt was required in order to create a Gmail account. (Compl. ¶ 

8.) In the court’s view, therefore, completing the reCAPTCHA, the sole basis for Plaintiff’s claims, 

arises out of or relates to the Gmail product or service.5

 Given that the Terms of Service were 

reasonably communicated and accepted, Defendant has met its burden to demonstrate that the 

forum selection clause is valid and enforceable. See Ajemian, 987 N.E.2d at 611. 

 Plaintiff, however, has failed to meet her substantial burden “to demonstrate that 

enforcement of the forum selection clause is unreasonable in the circumstances.” Id. Plaintiff 

agreed to the Terms of Service, and the forum selection clause clearly applies to her claim. Plaintiff 

has not pointed to any exceptional circumstances which would render enforcement of the provision 

unfair or unreasonable. As such, the forum selection clause will be enforced and the case will be 

transferred to the Northern District of California. 

 

5 Moreover, Plaintiff herself describes reCAPTCHA as a Google “Service” at times in her complaint. (Compl. ¶¶ 2, 3.) 

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V. CONCLUSION

 For these reasons, the court ALLOWS Defendant’s Motion to Transfer (Dkt. No. 8.) and 

declines to rule on Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. 

 It is So Ordered. 

 _/s/ Mark G. Mastroianni________ 

 MARK G. MASTROIANNI 

 United States District Judge 

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