News Google found guilty in libel case

1. Play nice. Don't make me use the banhammer.

2. Pete J is making the point that the man has no grounds for protest because he did in fact commit a crime associated with the terms that he objects being linked to in Google. Basically: if you don't want people to think badly of you, behave yourself. I think that is a valid way of looking at it.

Although 5000 Euros is peanuts to Google, it does well to appeal in order to prevent a precedent that could mean anyone could bar Google from displaying (not making; searchers are doing that) undesired associations between different bits of information. Such as, say: CIA -- torture; Bhopal -- poisoning; [name of politician] -- bribe, corruption; homeopathy -- charlatan; or Catholic Church -- child sexual abuse. Freedom of information, anybody?

Second, Google's search suggestions are not libellous in that they are not making the association or endorsing it. They are just reporting a statistic, basically. Google could argue that its search page content is being written as an ongoing dialogue that does not fall under the edition or regulation of the publishing industry; it is dynamically and automatically generated without premeditation or malicious intent. Therefore innocent dissemination is a defense available when a defendant had no actual knowledge of the defamatory statement or no reason to believe the statement was defamatory.

In many legal systems, adverse public statements about legal citizens presented as fact must be proven false to be defamatory or slanderous/libellous. However what is the truth in this case? The only "truth" that Google's search engine asserts is that people Googling for this man's name also tend to google for the terms: "rape" and "rapist", "prison" etc. Which is a statistical fact (and in terms of the last word, a factually true association).

A third reason it should object is because the French court may just be colluding with the kind of sociopathic reasoning that made the man a criminal offender in the first place. Sorry, but he did corrupt a minor, and badly enough to do time for it, evidently. Which says something. To support his argument which is basically about semantics is indulging him and trivialising his crime.

 

So "Google said suggestions were based on other people's searches, and were not the firm's responsibility"

I don't understand how it would come up with "Rape", "Rapist" when the words used in the article were
" corrupting a minor", whatever that means. Did the searchers type in " "mans name" is a rapist" so google rememberd this ?

 

^^ That's what I meant!

Edit: Nexxo's post I meant.

Thanks for taking the time to type that Nexxo! +rep (not that you haven't got enough already).

 

More likely when the original case was ongoing and people wanted to follow it on the news they would search for "[man's name] rape" or one of the other terms. Google tracks all of the searches and makes suggestions based on what people are searching for. Just because this article uses "corrupting a minor" doesn't mean that everyone did. You can bet all the French tabloids were calling it rape

 

Google will win on appeal, otherwise there is something badly wrong with French libel law.
Google are not acting libellously here - they are not suggesting or implying anything.

 

I'm no lawyer, but surely there could only be a libel charge if the man *wasn't* guilty of rape, or he wasn't in prison. He's been found guilty of these things, so it's true, and therefore not libel. The most the man could claim would be "defamation of character".
Also the guy is obviously after some money, or has no clue that the Google system is automated, and it's not Google's fault. Or both!

Oh sigh :-\

 

I am french and I think this is stupid.
It's like complaining that in statistic people think you are an asshole.

 

After a bit of research, it turns out this isn't quite as simple as it first appeared, or as Nexxo has described.

The Telegraph reports that the man is appealing his past conviction.

"The court ruled the man had been defamed because he is considered innocent under French law until all of his appeals have been exhausted."

See this article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...-by-linking-his-name-to-rape-in-searches.html

I still don't think Google's to blame for this, because I understand that Google's suggestions are only showing what other people are searching for, but the ongoing appeal does remove the possibility of using the "this man is factually a rapist" defence.

 

That's different. In the U.K. if I protest outside of McDonalds saying "THIS **** MAKES YOU FAT AND MCDONALDS ADVERTISE DIRECTLY TO AND MANIPULATE KIDS" McDonalds could bring a lible case up. At this point the burden of proof is upon ME to prove the claims. Not for McDonalds, a multibillion company, to provide the truth.

There was a documentry involved regarding this case with McDonalds that occured in the 90's I think. McDonalds sued the guy for libel and he had to provide all his own legal council etc etc and all McDonalds had to do was sit and do jack.

 

http://www.mcspotlight.org/ <-- That's the website of the guy who faught off McDiddies.

 

Just watch for all the 419 Scammers from Nigeria to put their own names in there like 4Chan did, fly to France and for €150 and then sue them for €5000 - lol

 

What's wrong with being innocent until proven guilty?

 

Sorry, I'm new, but Pete is right. I believe what they were saying is that Although he did corrupt a child, the courts still found google libel.

He had been found guilty of corrupting a minor previously. When he went to prison, there were probably quite a few articles online and there would be the words "rape", "rapist" and "prison" in an article about someone convicted of this crime.

 

It does not change anything. Google's search suggestions are not libellous in that they are not making, nor endorsing the suggestion that the man is a rapist. The search page content is automatically generated by software, hence without premeditation, hence without malicious intent. The only "truth" that Google's search engine asserts is that people Googling for this man's name also tend to Google for the terms: "rape" and "rapist", "prison" etc. No opinion is implied on the validity of that association.

 

+1

Google has, as far as they claim, no input on the Suggest feature. Google will not promote those it favors, it will not denounce those it dislikes. It will simply mirror the input it is given. None of this really has anything to do with whether or not he is a rapist because neither Google nor Google Suggest claimed that he is one. He could be as innocent as a newborn babe, yet still have Google Suggest show such things if enough people search for them.

 

As an interesting side note, anybody else sharing his name would be in exactly the same situation, without having ever been accused even - but I don't see them suing. (And even if they did, they would be wrong to do so.)

Maybe Google should say the autosuggest was referring to someone else by the same name

 

How about this, then?
Sorry if it's a little off-topic but I had to point it out. Favor the individual. Sure.

And back on-topic, as most of you have already mentioned, the ruling cannot possibly remain in favor of the unnamed felon, for a number of reasons, including some dangerous implications and precedents... Besides, if any company is more than equipped to take care of themselves, it's SkyNe...err.. Google.

 

I think the court's decision is in line with the current legislation in France. They are pushing the "right to forget" - law. The man has done his time. The search references are probably not made on the spot. You have to have some kind of a database to store those references. Now the court decided that Google is libel because their database contains old search queries which fall in to the jurisdiction of that law.

 

Every time I see one of these stories I wonder what on earth the world is coming too.

 

If you want to talk about jurisdiction, is this database hosted in France?