Google Loses Autocomplete Defamation Case 258
superglaze writes "Google has been found liable in an Italian court for defamatory comments made against an anonymous plaintiff — the complainant's name, when googled, elicited autocomplete suggestions that translate as 'con man' and 'fraud.' Google was found not to qualify for EU 'safe harbour' protection because the autocomplete suggestions were deemed to be Google's own creation, and not something merely passing through its systems."
Time to cut them off... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it. Clearly Italy has shown that it can't handle the Internet. Someone grab me a chainsaw, I'm cutting their fiberz.
Re:Time to cut them off... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Fine, you wanna be stupid, then we wont play. Lets see how you deal with a one week outage of our FREE services to you."
Re:Time to cut them off... (Score:5, Insightful)
As would I. Italy has been pulling crap like this for quite a few years, and this is the second absolutely ridiculous judgment against Google in an Italian court in the past... what, day? Two days?
The fact is that Google doesn't create those search suggestions. It merely presents a list of other people's queries based on frequency. That means that Google didn't defame this person. A lot of people doing previous searches did. This would have been an open and shut case in Google's favor in anything but a kangaroo court, which can only lead a sane person to question whether they would have ruled the same way had it been an Italian company. Just saying.
I think it's about time a major Internet company had the cojones to put Italy in its place—redirect all Google search and Gmail access from Italy to a page explaining the court case, and explaining why Google will no longer serve clients inside Italy. People at the top of Italy's government would be bending over backwards not only to correct the court's decision, but also to make sure it never happens again. Three hours. Tops. And even that's only if they do it over the lunch hour.
Re:Time to cut them off... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the courts reasoning is that, because google is now modifying their autocomplete (removing "piracy" related things) they are no longer just showing what other people searched for but are actually somewhat responsible for the results now.
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As far as I can tell, the truth is not an affirmative defense in Italian courts. Quite the opposite, actually.
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Is Google now also responsible for showing the typo correction suggestions; i.e. "Did you mean '{guy's name} is a con man"?.
How about the order of results? Obviously, the articles describing this guy as a con man are the most popular and should be listed first.
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That means that Google didn't defame this person. A lot of people doing previous searches did.
Not really. "A lot of people" where simply trying to find out whether or not this person was a fraud. A question is not the same thing as an affirmation. Subtle nuance.
It's as if many people inquired at the police whether a given person was a known scam artist, and police would start telling new inquirers "we don't know, but sure as hell, a lot of people before you had the same question about the same guy". Which I'm pretty much sure they can't do. They may warn people about the guy if they have independen
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It's as if many people inquired at the police whether a given person was a known scam artist, and police would start telling new inquirers "we don't know, but sure as hell, a lot of people before you had the same question about the same guy". Which I'm pretty much sure they can't do. They may warn people about the guy if they have independently assessed that this guy is doing something fishy, but they can't badmouth anybody just on the basis of many people wondering...
Uh, in your example, they AREN'T badmouthing the guy. They are relying the fact that many people have asked the same question. How is that badmouthing him?
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Re:Time to cut them off... (Score:4, Interesting)
Italy is ruled by a guy who owns television stations, and internet is its competition.
The famous French guy who said "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" is simply plain wrong again.
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I've always preferred "never attribute to stupidity what can profit from malice".
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The fact is that Google doesn't create those search suggestions. It merely presents a list of other people's queries based on frequency.
But it does filter those queries for potentially offensive ones. That right there puts them on dodgy ground in this case.
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The ruling is based on the fact that Google generates the suggestions. Even though the data used for generation is from other people Google still processes it and their argument is that the processing makes Google liable for anything defamatory it produces.
Naturally Google already censors the suggestions, e.g. typing in "child p" will never produce "child porn". Even the names of porn stars or sex toys are filtered out. Okay, it is censorship but I'm happy with it because I don't really want dodgy stuff on
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Google doesn't have to "go to war", they simply have to stop doing business in Italy. If Google has no assets that Italy can seize, then Italy can make one judgment after another and it won't make any difference.
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E.U. (Score:2)
Italy can seize their E.U. assets rather easily. Google should simply appeal this to Europe wide courts that'll play more fair.
Google might discourage this particular assault by 'accidentally' leaking the anonymous plaintiff's identity, along with all the sites making the accusations against him. They'd need to make sure only American citizens located inside the U.S. are involved in the leak, i.e. no evidence for the Italian court, no disbarment for their lawyer, etc.
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it wouldn't be "war" any more than netflix not being available is netflix at war with Italy.
i think google's best option here is to cut Italy off.
the Italian government has not acted in the interests of the people for a long time. google getting switched off wont change that, but it'll make the people even more pissed.
the main problem is i bet the "anonymous" person behind the lawsuit has mafia and berlusconi (and judiciary) connections.
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Well, the other problem is that if Google set that precedent, it would also be asking for Microsoft to set up some legal cases in other countries with some stalking horses. Google pulling out of Italy would give MS Bing carte blanche on search, and MS wouldn't be above trying to trick Google to hand them other countries one at a time.
What should happen is that everybody should start doing searches on Google, Bing, and all other search engines for "Padova Maria Luisa" and "culo de cavallo"
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I think that would be the first time a government doesn't fold to corporation pressure in quite a while...
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Though, for that matter "Microsoft sucks" also didn't appear as was typing it...so who knows.
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Try to get auto-complete on a phrase including p*ssy, f*ck, c*nt, etc. The second you type one of those, the feature shuts off.
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Google P****
This could be an awesome magazine....
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Magazine? What's that, some kind of relic of the paper age?
You know what would be even more awesome than a "Google P****" magazine? A website where you could just search for images of P*****, and get tens of thousands of results for your salacious review. That would be all kinds of awesome.
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In the end a simple appeal should be enough. The appeal the man's name must be unique. If the name is not unique then the man's own feeling his possible guilt and shame drive the reaction. A name is not a sufficient identifier on the internet and those auto complete merely reflect an automated history of searches, google is not responsible for those searches. Additionally google should have the right to know the name and to be able to publicly seek evidence of the validity of any accusations and thus be ab
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Alternatively, Google could try and find an Italian man with the same name and ask him to state in court that he wants his name to be autocompleted with "con man" and "fraud".
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After seeing the Yahoo decision yesterday, I thought of the following idea. Now with the latest Google decision, I think it's even better:
All major Internet search companies (at least those based in the US - oh, right, that's pretty much all of them, isn't it?) should use IP geolocation to block access from Italy. Just redirect them to a page that says something like the following: "You appear to be attempting to reach us from Italy. We're sorry, but your courts and elected officials have chosen to make
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It would be a commendable thing to do. But wouldn't the Italians just use Bing or something else?
But wouldn't Bing just return the same result [blogspot.com]? :)
I, too, wonder why companies don't engage in this "take my ball and go home" behavior. It must be that they don't take it personally, and there is still money to be made.
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Moving out of a market allows someone else to move in. This is why you'll see large franchises willing to work at a loss in some locations in order to keep a competitor from expanding. I would imagine a company with as much money as Google would see a loss of income in Italy as preferable to having another competitor come in, take the market away and figure out some way to profit off of it.
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The name begins with Truf
If the precedent applied to the US then Dick Wee [google.com], Dick Hade [google.com],and a lot of others can make some money from Google's "Did you mean" suggestions.
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You're probably right: "Silvio Berlusconi truff..." doesn't generate any suggestions.
However, "Silvio Berlusconi fasc..." still generates "fascist" and "fascism" as suggestions.
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Someone down the thread posted that the PDF of the court case had the name redacted, but the information was not actually removed. I tried accessing the PDF from the ZDNet link, but it (the PDF itself) has apparently been removed.
The name he gave was for a guy named Alfio Bardolla. I don't speak Italian, but a search for his name shows that he apparently does seminars on "how to invest in real estate." It seems that he does a lot of self-promotion. I found a discussion on a reviews forum where he had threat [google.com]
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Someone grab me a chainsaw, I'm cutting their fiberz.
It is my understanding that backhoes are the appropriate equipment for cuttin fiberz. ;)
(Seriously. On land most unplanned fiber outages are due to fools operating backhoes.)
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I keep wondering why... (Score:5, Insightful)
... foreign courts are being used for foreign nations to extort money from business they did not produce and had little connection to its success.
Google should stop providing links to Italian businesses.
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Erm, I'm assuming Google is in italy because they turn a profit there. I would call that a connection to Google's success. And for them to stop "providing links" would be like for Pepsi to stop providing sugar water in exchange for money. This is not a route to success. Where did you go to business school, anyway?
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Courts judgments are only meaningful if they can be enforced. If the Italian court doesn't have a way of getting at Google's assets, what their judges do becomes pretty much irrelevant.
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Hear, hear! Not that Google, itself, is above trying to use 'pull' to their advantage.. but their immorality doesn't make this anymore justified.
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Yes, those crafty Italians, using Italian courts to enforce Italian law. Whatever next?
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Italy is happy for them to do this as long as they do it within Italian law. It may well be that Italian law is making this impossible but honestly, I don't think it is. It's not even making it all that difficult.
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I'm not sure I agree with your implication that this is intentional on the part of Italy - after all America is like a shining beacon to the world of how to have a broken legal system.
But... if you are correct, Google stopping linking to Italian businesses won't help, most likely Businesses will sue about that, and it will only speed up the process of investigating Google for anti-trust issues in Europe. (obviously America is already ahead of us on this front too!)
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If you want to do business in an area (or even just have a presence there), you have to abide by that area's laws. It's nothing to do with extortion; Italian companies doing business in the US are similarly subject to US laws.
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"... foreign courts are being used for foreign nations to extort money from business they did not produce and had little connection to its success.."
I agree this judgement is stupid and unacceptable, but I don't think this si really a fair argument. The fact is Google does business in Italy by providing services too it and takes money from Italy businesses, as such it must ensure it or it's business interests (i.e. subsidiaries) in Italy play by Italian law. This doesn't mean they have to adhere to the cour
Oh FFS! (Score:2, Troll)
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romanes eunt domus
romanes eunt domus? (Score:5, Funny)
[Brian is writing graffiti on the palace wall. The Centurion catches him in the act]
Centurion: What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian: It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion: No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
Brian: Er, "Romanus" !
Centurion: Vocative plural of "Romanus" is?
Brian: Er, er, "Romani" !
Centurion: [Writes "Romani" over Brian's graffiti] "Eunt"? What is "eunt"? Conjugate the verb, "to go" !
Brian: Er, "Ire". Er, "eo", "is", "it", "imus", "itis", "eunt".
Centurion: So, "eunt" is...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But, "Romans, go home" is an order. So you must use...?
[He twists Brian's ear]
Brian: Aaagh ! The imperative !
Centurion: Which is...?
Brian: Aaaagh ! Er, er, "i" !
Centurion: How many Romans?
Brian: Aaaaagh ! Plural, plural, er, "ite" !
Centurion: [Writes "ite"] "Domus"? Nominative? "Go home" is motion towards, isn't it?
Brian: Dative !
[the Centurion holds a sword to his throat]
Brian: Aaagh ! Not the dative, not the dative ! Er, er, accusative, "Domum" !
Centurion: But "Domus" takes the locative, which is...?
Brian: Er, "Domum" !
Centurion: [Writes "Domum"] Understand? Now, write it out a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
For Autocompleteness (Score:2)
How about Google does this.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you would like to improve your Google search experience, we encourage you to write to your local member of parliament.
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If you would like to improve your Google search experience, we encourage you to write to your local member of parliament.
And surely Google would then be charged with sedition and fomenting revolution.
Once burned, twice shy. (Score:2)
4 We regret to inform you, that your Google search experience due to the actions of Carlo Piana and by order of the court of Milan. The auto complete function has been disabled for the residents of Italy, due to autocomplete results raising claims of defamation.
One reason you hire competent local counsel is to save yourself from doing something profoundly stupid when you lose a case in a foreign court.
The Italian judge, I suspect, would regard a stunt like this as profoundly disrespectful of Italian law and courts and quite good evidence for a charge of an on-going defamation with malice - an attempt to have your revenge on the plaintiff.
Nor would I expect a member of the Italian Parliament to be any more charitable.
It is useful to remember that Google is not as
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Which countries don't fall into this category?
Share and Enjoy (Score:2)
Perhaps the Italian Justice System should 'go stick its head in a pig'.
And the next logical step... (Score:3)
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Well what if searching for this his name on Google results in the top 10 hits being titled along the lines of "This dude is a con man and a fraud!!"? Is Google responsible for *that* algorithm?
If it is, then former senator and impossible presidential candidate Rick Santorum [google.com] is going to be first in line for that lawsuit.
Italian Justice (Score:2)
I love Italy (Score:2)
Berlusconi? (Score:2)
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Interesting...I tried to get that PDF so I could see for myself, but I get a 404 from ZDNet link. Perhaps someone realized this and it was removed.
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Well, Google has some answers for that as well. Apparently he gives seminars on "how to invest in real estate", it seems like he aggressively markets himself, and as far as I can tell he's previously threatened to shut down a website [auto-translation from Italian] [google.com] because an unsatisfied customer posted an unfavorable review.
Re:Poor cop-out (Score:5, Insightful)
Google defended themselves by saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for the output of an algorithm that they created. That's weak.
You left out the key part regarding searches from users. The output is determined by the input, the input is dictated by users.
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Google defended themselves by saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for the output of an algorithm that they created. That's weak.
You left out the key part regarding searches from users. The output is determined by the input, the input is dictated by users.
And in America, Google has a blacklist of words that are never included in their autocomplete results. They knew this kind of stuff would happen.
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Replying to my own post:
The Google Blacklist [2600.com]
Obviously, all you have to do is hit return to get the results like you always could. However, even when your request isn't blacklisted, you're not getting the SAME results that you would get by hitting return. Entering "murder" into the search bar and hitting a space gets you suggestions of mostly band names. It's only after you hit return that you can learn the other sinister meaning of the word. What we have here is a demonstration of how content can be filtere
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Google defended themselves by saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for the output of an algorithm that they created. That's weak.
You left out the key part regarding searches from users. The output is determined by the input, the input is dictated by users.
And in America, Google has a blacklist of words that are never included in their autocomplete results. They knew this kind of stuff would happen.
They filtered out stuff that more than likely is going to direct the user to illegal content, that obviously isn't the case in this situation.
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The problem is now they have a filtering solution, but they weren't using it well enough.
No, because they are blocking the terms that likely result in illegal content, not the content itself. They can't be expected to check the validity of the results in all legal jurisdictions prior to suggesting a seemingly innocent search term.
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what about google showing what input the algorithm had for it to give this output?
Algorithms generally don't make stuff up, I'm guessing that maybe, just maybe, some people have been calling that man a scoundrel, a con man and a fraud. THOSE people would then be responsible for their words, because unless he IS a con man, then calling him one is defamation
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What? Do you know what would happen if they said that? Every special interest group in the world would have google censor everything that exists.
This isn't an algorithm they created, this is essentially their end product. So of course they should not be liable for what comes out of that. What they should be doing however, is trying to find a way to watch for abuses, but that is not really something that is their job, and more something they should do simply to improve quality of the results.
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Google defended themselves by saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for the output of an algorithm that they created.
Yes! That's the crux of the matter. This decision is not some Luddite rejection of the internet, nor merely holding someone liable for citing an offending publication (as the links to infringing copies == infringing copies reasoning does), but merely holding someone responsible for what they themselves publish.
It does not matter in this case that Google didn't write the defamato
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Associating words in an algorithm to find the next most likely word is not the equivalent to making a statement. It's not defamation.
Google never said "soandso is a con-man", they just offered a service that knows "When people type that name, the most likely associated term is usually con-man".
The court is not thinking this through far enough, or just completely ignorant.
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That's just idiotic. By that rubric, they should also be liable if something comes up in the search results that someone deems offensive. Because they're "publishing" the search results and the titles of all the pages found. Your logic means search engines can't exist. Congratulations on finding a way to ruin the internet.
You aren't supposed to lie in court. (Score:2)
They should have said "Crap, we screwed up. We'll fix it right away."
But it's impossible to fix. Software isn't cable of discerning "truth", so no algorithm can tell you if something is libel or not.
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admitting fault is a retarded idea. that would set a dangerous precedent.
especially if there is no fault to admit.
google searches the internet. if the internet thinks such-and-such is a crook, google will report it as such, and doing otherwise would be dishonest.
Re:Poor cop-out (Score:5, Insightful)
Libel and slander are something that Google should be held liable for no different than anyone else.
AFAIK, in order for something to appear in googles suggestions, someone else has to have searched it first. Google isnt creating the suggestion, its simply remembering the search that someone else did and offering it up.
This really isnt any different than google results turning up libel and slander. Google isnt creating it, its simply indexing it.
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Google already censors auto complete to avoid offending people. Try typing queries like 'why are nig' or 'how do we get rid of'. You know what would pop up if they didn't have certain filters in their algorithm.
I just tried searching for Silvio Berlusconi on google.it, assuming he is the unnamed plaintiff. It looks like they've already deployed a fix.
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It's not about censorship. It's about the fact that Google is doing more than just presenting the top X most common searches that include the word or phrase you're currently typing - they are already actively removing searches from that list of suggestions. That puts them on dodgy ground in a case like this.
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No, it doesnt, because they STILL never created the suggestion. Answer me this-- Since google also sometimes removes google searches (china for example), are they now liable for all links indexed on their site?
Think carefully before you answer that; a judge saying "yes" would mean the end of search engines as we know them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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They make no judgement on the veracity, or even the coherence, of the sentence - they simply present it as something that people have been typing in to the search box.
That is arguably true. The question is whether or not they make it clear. I understand it. You understand it. But does the average person understand it? And if the average person is expected not to understand it, perhaps it is not a good idea to generate it. I don't know the details of this case, but I can definitely understand the need for an explanation somewhere. I don't see one anywhere.
Having said that, the number one completion for "Google is" is "evil". Number three is "gay". What is one to
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You know what? It's not google who makes baseless accusations. BTW, how the fuck is an autocomplete suggestion an accusation I don't know, but let's set this aside. It's a typing aid, damnit. It's a piece of code. It's not programmed to target anyone in particular. Heck, for all I care, the output is precisely a statement of mathematical fact -- an output of a generic autocomplete algorithm, whose input was the snapshot of google's database at a certain point in time. You may not like it, but facts aren't l
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Live by the sword, die by the sword.
You can't censor some things then cry for "safe-harbor" in other areas. If you're simply a transparent conduit for user-provided data, fine, but Google clearly isn't transparent.
I just tried a couple good-old Anglo-Saxon words. I didn't get any suggestions for "assh" or "fuck" either.
What's more confounding is Google's implementation of the policy cited in TFA by the plaintiff's attorney:
"Google argued that it could not be held liable because it is a hosting provider, b
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As you said, this has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. I ask those who are criticizing the verdict: what if YOU woke up one morning and found out that Google is suggesting you are a paedophile or a crook, just because a group of determined individuals have been intentionally searching your name with those keywords? From the proceedings, it seems that this guy hasn't even been on trial for the crime of fraud and probably is the victim of his own competitor
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That does not answer the question facing Google and the courts though.
Part of the question (for a rational legal system), is not whether Google originally made the "statement", but whether it is publishing it. And fairly clearly Google is publishing the "statement". So it does not matter that other users typed the search term first. Similar to the way a newspaper can't defend against libel by saying they just
Re:I'm glad there's nothing worth googling me over (Score:5, Funny)
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Wow. I forgot how many posts I made. I need to get a life.
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Look on the bright side; if there was a place that hired programmers to work in the nude, you'd be at the top of their list.
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young and needed the money?
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If I search my name, I get the results of a guy who has eerily similar interests and has the same occupation as I do. I have actually had acquaintances ask me if I have moved recently as he lives in another country. The good news is that he is relatively famous within the industry we work, so I can ride on his coattails. :)
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Suggestions for "'x' is ":
Bing (on Google):
bing is not google
bing is cheating
bing is google
bing is annoying
bing is powered by google
Google (on Bing):
google is watching you
google is skynet
google is evil
google is the devil
google is better than bing
Microsoft (on Google):
microsoft is dying
microsoft is dead
microsoft is doomed
microsoft is a monopoly
microsoft is a registered trademark
microsoft is failing
Microsoft (on Bing):
microsoft is evil
microsoft is paying you not fake
microsoft is dead
microsoft is not a monopol
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So we should ban broom handles since it's possible that someone might shove one in your arse, right?