Fair-use of someone's published works means that it's okay to quote sections for review or research purposes. It does not mean it is okay to copy their works holus bolus.
My experience with Google Books and with Amazon has always been that that is precisely what they provide. In other words, they were making snippets or brief sections available for review or research purposes.
Finally, today the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed this finding (from WaPo):
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge from authors who had argued that the tech giant's project was "brazen violation of copyright law" -- effectively ending the legal battle in Google's favor.
Without the Supreme Court taking up the case, a federal appeals court ruling from October, which found that the book-scanning program fell under the umbrella of fair use, will stand. ...
When the case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit last year, a panel of three judges sided with Google -- finding that the tech giant's efforts amounted to a "transformative" use of the material and that snippets from searching the database don't amount to a "substantial substitute" for an original book.