The National Writers Union and Consumer Watchdog were among those to file briefs urging rejection as the Google Book Search Settlement deadline officially passed this morning. Although the final lineup of objectors won’t be known until all the last-minute briefs have been processed by the court, the groups join DC Comics, The American Society of Journalists and Authors, a coalition of some 58 authors and the Open Book Alliance (which includes Google competitors Microsoft and Amazon.com) in urging the court to reject the proposed settlement.

National Writers Union president Larry Goldbetter said that the settlement has prompted “justified outrage and objections from writers of all types, across the country and around the world,” by abridging writers’ economic and "moral" rights. “We can’t let Google or any mega-corporation steal our work, re-publish it and sell ads around it without permission and paying us only a pittance.” Goldbetter said NWU would fight the proposed settlement in court, with the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, and through Congress, and last week, called on former Vice President Al Gore, a Google senior advisor, to urge Google a delay in the settlement proceedings.

Consumer Watchdog, meanwhile, a Washington-based advocacy group, this morning filed a brief urging the court to reject the settlement as anticompetitive, lacking in privacy protections for consumers, and counter to U.S. and international law. “The proposed class-action settlement is monumentally overbroad and invites the Court to overstep its legal jurisdiction, to the detriment of consumers and the public,” read the Consumer Watchdog brief, adding that the deal would “strip rights from millions of absent class members, worldwide, in violation of national and international copyright law, for the sole benefit of Google.”

In a statement, Consumer Watchdog’s John Simpson also criticized the deal’s lack of transparency and representation. “The proposed book settlement was negotiated in secret by the parties in the suit and there was no opportunity to represent and protect the broad interests of all consumers,” said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog. “The proposed class action settlement claims to resolve the actual dispute between the parties, but it also goes much, much farther, and purports to enroll millions of absent class members in a series of new business ‘opportunities.’"