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Google Loses Autocomplete Defamation Case

Posted by timothy on from the why-italy-and-google-shouldn't-date dept.

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."

12 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Time to cut them off... by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    1. Re:Time to cut them off... by MrQuacker · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I would like to see the shitstorm that would arise if Google played that card.

      "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."

    2. Re:Time to cut them off... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would like to see the shitstorm that would arise if Google played that card.

      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.

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    3. Re:Time to cut them off... by SilentChasm · · 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.

    4. Re:Time to cut them off... by marcello_dl · · Score: 3, 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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  2. I keep wondering why... by joocemann · · 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.

  3. Re:Poor cop-out by exomondo · · Score: 4, 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.

  4. How about Google does this.... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1. Geolocate source ip addresses.
    2. If the IP accessing Google search is an italy IP, turn off the 'autocomplete function'
    3. On every search form and result page, display an orange box with the following text:
    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.
      If you would like to improve your Google search experience, we encourage you to write to your local member of parliament.
  5. Re:I'm glad there's nothing worth googling me over by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you're so unimportant, why does Google come up with so many pages of results for your name?

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  6. Re:Poor cop-out by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, 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.

  7. Re:Poor cop-out by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously they should refrain from disparaging words and remarks in the auto-complete as they cannot possibly predict or verify if such words are libelous or slander against a person.

    I find it surprising that you (and the judge) consider autocompleted text to be potentially libellous - as I mentioned in another post, Google's autocomplete function isn't saying (or even implying) that "x is a fraud" is a factual statement, it's saying that "x is a fraud" is a string of words being searched for regularly.

    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. To me, that seems very, very different from Google making or publishing the statement in question.

  8. romanes eunt domus? by Anonymous Coward · · 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.