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Germany's Former First Lady Sues Google
quax writes "Bettina Wulff faces an uphill battle for her reputation. Her husband had to resign as Germany's president due to corruption allegations and has many detractors. Apparently some of them started a character assassination campaign against his wife. At least that is, if you trust serious journalists who looked into the matter and stated that it is made up. Unfortunately though for Bettina Wulff, the rumors took off on the Internet. Now whenever you enter her name Google suggest the additional search terms 'prostitute' and 'escort.' Google refuses to alter its search index."
Google should rethink their position. They should know that when and/or if they break European libel laws, then they absolutely
Google suggest is an interpretive algorithm using common searches, and mass information to 'guess' what you or many other people might be wanting to search for. If the information is out there or people commonly search a topic it SHOULD appear as a possible option. The words probably should be censored for the vast audience possible, but it's the source information that is at fault, not Google for collecting it.
instead of just suggesting search terms like prostitute and escort, why not also mention the fees ?
Turns out Bettina Wulff is Barbara Streisand's half-sister!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I think they meant "first lady" as "the escort he chooses by default".
I'm not so sure I would agree with Google's typical defense on this issue, which is that they have an algorithm that automatically ranks all the search results and they can't change that. Except they manually change the results. When companies break their rules, they can punish them. For example, when BMW's German website was found to influence results, Google banned them from their index. An eyeglass company, DecorMyEyes, verbally abused its customers to generate bad reviews ... and more publicity. After being published in The Times, they dropped the company from the index. Even in the Santorum case, they eventually made some results less prominent. Google has also been accused of pushing up the rankings of its own products. So it's kinda hypocritical to say that Google doesn't adjust individual results.
Google is already censoring the auto-complete, just for other reasons:
It will not suggest "adobe photoshop torrent" or "adobe photoshop crack", even though that these searches and similar searches are extremly popular. And it will not autocomplete "Rocco" to "Rocco Siffredi". So google is censoring auto-complete against piracy and against pornography, why exactly shouldn't it do the same thing to protect people against libel?
Jan
a reverse Streisand effect. Surely a person everybody calls bad can't be that bad?
What annoys me most about this debate is that there are so many people who apparently think that having worked as a prostitute/sex worker is so very bad and would somehow disqualify a woman from being the first lady. People and the boulevard press in Germany even went so far as to take the first lady's mature attitude towards better sexual education at schools as a clear sign of having been a prostitute, as if any of that constituted any real problem (rather than, say, hypocrisy or the moronic politics of her husband).
What annoys me most about this debate is that there are so many people who apparently think that having worked as a prostitute/sex worker is so very bad and would somehow disqualify a woman from being the first lady.
I'd argue that being the first lady is so very bad that it should disqualify a person from being a sex worker.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I consider prostitutes to be more honest than politicians, at least you get what want, then you pay with prostitutes. Politicians hike taxes and then don't deliver on their promises.
I think Bettina Wulff is taking a step down the ladder with her attitude, especially in the name of politics.
Actually I think you will find most Brits concede that Maradona's second goal was spectacular. :-P
Unlike the Argentinians, we're generally gracious when defeated fairly...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
And it couldn't be more evident. Just two things:
1. The event in discussion now dates back half a year. When it was news, Mr Wulff was still Federal President (an office which, in Germany, does not carry too much power; his main job is to represent the state) and struggling against the corruption allegations which finally made him resign. Back then, when it was urgent, Mrs Wulff did not deem it necessary to do or say anything at all.
2. This week there is a book by Mrs Wulff coming to the stores titled "Jenseits des Protokolls" ("Beyond Protocol"), which is expected to tell a few stories from the couple of months her husband was President, including, of course, the events she is now suing Google for.
Any questions?
All this is of course exactly in line with what those Wulff people have already shown to be their character.
Fuckyeah! And everyone in Germany is proud about Bettina Wu... no, wait - what was the question, again?
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!