Google gets 230 protection for fraudulent apps in Google Play

Hemry v. Google, LLC, 2026 WL 2909299, No. 26-cv-01611-PCP (N.D. Cal. Sept. 28, 2026)

Hemry downloaded a fraudulent investment app, Watsans, from the Google Play Store, Google’s main avenue for Android operating system smartphone users to download third-party applications. He sued for violations of the UCL and FAL and common law negligence. Google successfully asserted §230, which is still doing some of its core job.

Google Play’s help pages tout its safety and security and the presence of “safe, high-quality apps,” and Hemry alleged he relied on this. He also alleged that scam apps often make developers’ names include some reference to “5 [stars]” so that users think that the apps themselves have received thousands of five-star reviews from actual users, and that the Watsans page within the Google Play Store exhibited this and other features suggestive of a scam application that should have put Google on notice of the application’s true nature.

The statutory claims were “at least theoretically based on a duty that is distinct from its duties as a publisher—namely, Google’s obligation to ensure that its own representations are not false and misleading.” But a “general statement” of a company’s content moderation policy “is not a specific promise, but a [mere] description of its moderation policy, and thus protected from liability under § 230.” “Google could put apps through safety reviews and check, scans apps to protect users from malware, forbid harmful apps, and ask that all apps comply with all relevant laws, while still hosting dangerous apps despite its best efforts.” The appearance of Watsans in the Google Play store didn’t justify an inference that Google was not conducting the promised 10,000 safety checks or requiring evidence of regulatory compliance, as it allegedly promised to do.

The negligence claim was also barred. Hemry alleged that Google was negligent when it undertook to review third-party apps but failed to exercise reasonable care in performing that undertaking. “The Ninth Circuit has repeatedly emphasized that Section 230 protects an interactive computer service provider from liability to the extent that liability ‘would require [the service] to actively vet and evaluate third-party’ content.” The court noted the moderators’ dilemma: “permitting liability on such a theory could discourage such providers from engaging in any form of content moderation—the negative disincentive that Congress specifically sought to eliminate through the enactment of Section 230.”