News Google found guilty in libel case

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/09/27/google-guilty-libel-case/1

 

Even if it's not Google's suggestion, the fact that on their page if you search that guy's name it comes up with such and such is a rapist is pretty libelous.

 

This is so dumb. It's as is people who get to make decisions on technological matters have no understanding of how they work. Oh. Hang on a second...

I suppose now Bit-Tech will get sued for stating that this guy has links to the word "rape". Good thing he isn't named.

 

Libel laws need revising. Auto-complete based on common past searches cannot be libellous.

 

That's pretty silly considering it's an automated system, and it's a valid search 'suggestion'

I could understand if Google Suggest showed up really incorrect and offensive suggestions (didn't 4Chan recently manipulate Google Suggest so that searching for Justin Bieber would suggest 'Justin Bieber Syphilis'? In this case I could understand a lawsuit, but even then I think it'd be harsh)

But yeah, this particular case is very silly.

 

^ They call it googlebombing.

 

Well, he shouldn't have done that then, should he? Scum.

 

Are you that thick? You missed out the "Although" at the beginning of your chosen quote, and missed out the ", the court decided in his favour" at the end of it.

 

Ah yes, of course

That rings a bell now - I remember they did the same to Paris Hilton. With Google suggesting she *is* a [adult filter] when people typed in *isn't*

 

And there was the famous Weapons of Mass Destruction one too.

 

Court decided in his favor in case against Google, he was guilty of the criminal offense.

 

Thank you.

@Skiddywinks: He was found guilty of 'corruping a minor' prior to this case and served time for it. Hence, as Google says, his name is inevitably going to be linked to this case, isn't it? I don't see why Google should be held responsible for some disreputable w**ker's actions.

 

Now, now. Play nice.

The court decided in his favour in terms of the Google case; he was still convicted and imprisoned for charges of corrupting a minor.

I can see where he's coming from, though - without knowing about the case details, corrupting a minor doesn't necessarily mean rape (it could have been consensual, even though the other party was under-age).

While it's naive to assume that Google had anything actively to do with an automatic search, it could modify the search suggestions to filter out any potentially slanderous phrases - so it's a difficult judgement to call.

 

Not in my country it is not.

Google's suggestions are not google endorsing the pages returned by the search - they are an assertion that that the suggestions are representative of the most popular and accessible content that matches the search - which is a fact.

In general, if a news outlets reports that X is accused of doing Y, they are not suggesting that X did do Y, merely that someone else is making that claim. Likewise, google is merely reporting the fact someone else is accusing this guy of being a rapist - which is true.

I'm surprised that this cases succeeded, even in France - I'm fairly sure it wouldn't succeed anywhere else. The implications for other search engines and media outlets are tremendous.

 

because we all want fred west - a bit dodgy - to be filtered out

 

It couldn't.

How would you decide which information is libellous or not? The very fact that they might start to filter some results would imply that they are deciding that non-filtered results must therefore be true and endorsed by Google - which leaves them wide open for other suits against them.

Their position will remain the same - they returned the most popular results that match the search phrase but will not seek to credit the returned results with any kind of authority.

 

Google auto complete is funny. If you type in "Religion is" google suggests "********". and if you type "Google is" it says "watching you".

I wonder how many other people or companies are going to try sue google now for things that people have searched for?

 

You're surprised that France did something that no other country would....?

 

From what I hear UK's libel laws aren't great, either

 

I'm surprised that even France would come to such a judgement. Yes, the French often prefer to plough their own furrow, and they do have privacy laws that favour the individual, but even so, this case was unusual IMHO.

However, it wouldn't be the biggest shock of my life to find out the case was contrived to p**s an American corporation off...*any* American corporation.