Google has been involved in multiple lawsuits over issues such as privacy, advertising, intellectual property and various Google services such as Google Books and YouTube. The company's legal department expanded from one to nearly 100 lawyers in the first five years of business, and by 2014 had grown to around 400 lawyers. Google's Chief Legal Officer is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond.

United States vs. Google Inc. is a case in which the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved a stipulated order for a permanent injunction and a $22.5 million civil penalty judgment, the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ever historically won. The FTC and Google consented to the entry of the stipulated order to resolve the dispute which arose from Google's violation of its privacy policy. In this case, the FTC found Google liable for misrepresenting "privacy assurances to users of Apple's Safari Internet browser". It was reached after the FTC considered that through the placement of advertising tracking cookies in the Safari web browser, and while serving targeted advertisements, Google violated the 2011 FTC's administrative order issued in FTC v. Google Inc.

Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González was a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union holding that an internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal information which appears on web pages published by third parties.

Hibnick v Google was a class action suit against Google in 2010. The suit accused Google of breaching several electronic communications laws with the launch of their new product Google Buzz. Google Buzz was a social media network that automatically plugged into Gmail.

Joffe v. Google, Inc. was a federal lawsuit between Ben Joffe and Google, Inc. that entered official Supreme Court jurisdiction in November 2010. Joffe claimed that Google broke one of the Wiretap Legislation segments when they intruded on the seemingly “public” wireless networks of private homes through their Street View application. Although Google appealed multiple times, the courts ruled in favor of Joffe.

Mosley v SARL Google was a 2013 French court case in which former President of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile Max Mosley attempted to make the internet search engine Google remove images of him engaging in a sado-masochistic sex act with several prostitutes. The publication of the images in the (now defunct) British newspaper The News of the World was litigated in Mosley v News Group Newspapers and resulted in Mr Mosley being awarded £60,000 in damages.

Rocky Mountain Bank v. Google Inc. was a decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California holding that Google had to reveal the account information of a Gmail user who had been mistakenly sent sensitive information from Rocky Mountain Bank.

Patacsil v. Google,. Inc. In re Google Location History Litigation, Case No. 5:18-cv-05062, U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California. The law firm Franklin D. Azar and Associates, P.C. was appointed interim class counsel in this privacy case by users of Google Maps or other Google applications, alleging that Google deliberately collected personal information from individuals in order to generate millions of dollars in revenue by covertly recording contemporaneous location data about users on their mobile devices who had specifically opted out of such tracking.