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$200,000 Judgement Against Google In Mokbel Shots Case

Posted by Unknown on from the spoons-made-me-fat dept.

niftydude writes with news of damages awarded in a case over Google image search results "Should Google be held liable for images that appear in its search results? An Australian court has said yes. 'A Melbourne man who won a defamation case against search engine giant Google has been awarded $200,000 in damages. Milorad Trkulja, also known as Michael, sued the multinational over images of him alongside a well-known underworld figure that appeared in its search results. A six-person Supreme Court jury found last month that Mr Trkulja had been defamed by the images, which he first contacted Google about removing in 2009.'"

37 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Due to legal requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We at Google have had to ban all of Australia from google images. We apologize for the inconvenience.

    Thank you,

    Google.

    1. Re:Due to legal requirements by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Funny

      We here at Internet Tubes And Things had to point out that due to the nature of the internet and the world wide web, banning all of Australia, or even most of the world, wouldn't accomplish anything. Suing google likewise does nothing, and in fact, nuclear weapons are also ineffective. You see, at Internet Tubes And Things, we believe in infinite redundancy and endless replication of data, especially data that's trying to be banned, censored, or access-controlled. Whenever someone tries to remove that product feature, we like to return it to the user in question about a thousand times more.

      Thank You,

      Internet Tubes And Things

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:Due to legal requirements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I second that.
        -- Barbara Streisand

  2. Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by tbird81 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or is it just another judge taking glee out of fining wealthy companies for the sake of it?

    1. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by pokoteng · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, unlike American courts, Australian courts take these things seriously. They probably sat there pondering for a long time with whole list of evidence and whatnot, and came to conclusion that indeed, the person is owed $200k worth of damages for defamation. $200k AUD is, assuming $50k salary (relatively low income), only some 4 years worth of salary. It's not a massive jackpot of any means, and most of it probably goes to the lawyer fees. You'll barely afford half a suburban flat with it here. Evidence must have stacked that the image results search for him has made him suffer some level of financial and other damages, but not as great as people seem to think. I don't know the exact court details, but some poor judge sat there and added up the sums for this.

      --
      the game
    2. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      TFS doesn't really paint a good picture:

      from TFA:
      "Google search results also linked to a page on a now defunct website, Melbourne Crime, which had published photos labelled with his name.
      Mr Trkulja said he had never initially intended to sue Google but had been galvanised into action after his request for the content to be removed from its searches in 2009 was not granted.
      Supreme Court Justice David Beach this morning said in awarding the damages that the case was about ‘‘vindication and ‘nailing the lie’’’. "

      and also:

      "The company used the ‘‘innocent dissemination’’ defence, arguing it was providing links to the content without knowing that the material was defamatory.
      However, the jury found Google’s defence of the images broke down because it did not take any steps to remove the images from its searches once Mr Trkulja’s lawyers contacted the company. The jury found the search engine was not liable for the search results themselves, as Mr Trkulja had incorrectly filled out a form for reporting offensive material by not including the URL of the content to which he objected. "

    3. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, unlike American courts, Australian courts take these things seriously. They probably sat there pondering for a long time with whole list of evidence and whatnot, and came to conclusion that indeed, the person is owed $200k worth of damages for defamation. $200k AUD is, assuming $50k salary (relatively low income), only some 4 years worth of salary. It's not a massive jackpot of any means, and most of it probably goes to the lawyer fees. You'll barely afford half a suburban flat with it here. Evidence must have stacked that the image results search for him has made him suffer some level of financial and other damages, but not as great as people seem to think. I don't know the exact court details, but some poor judge sat there and added up the sums for this.

      In America, truth of the information stated is an affirmative defense against libel and slander. So if you happen to be standing next to a total douche when I snap a picture, that's your tough luck. The information is true so it's not slanderous or libelous. If I photoshop one or the other of you into the picture to make a false association, that could be libelous.

      And the information isn't really defamatory. Two people standing in the same place at the same time is no big deal. I've stood next to THOUSANDS of people I don't know and who the hell cares?

    4. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by SirAdelaide · · Score: 3, Informative

      The issue was that after the shooting incident, his photo was wrongly associated with the name of a violent gang. He might have been shot by that gang, but wasn't part of it. A website wrongly used his photo with the wrong name, and after indexing that site, Google showed his photo when people searched for a particular criminal. He asked for Google to block that photo when those search terms were used, and they didn't. That is when his lawyers said he had a case.

      --
      I'm a fruit pirate. I bought a watermelon once, and spat the seeds in the back yard. They grew into another watermelon,
    5. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      He did and the content was removed from their site, but google images kept the association, he asked google to remove it but they refused...

    6. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think anyone is accusing Australian government agencies of exercising common sense at this point. The UK is like USA Part 2: The Less Rights Version, and Australia is like UK Part 2: Even Less Rights.

      --
      If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
    7. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except that Google creates and keeps their association data, linking the gang name to his picture. That data wasn't created anywhere else, Google made the association through their algorithms, and stored it long after the original postings were deleted or corrected. Which means you're stupid.

    8. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      A supreme court is not the high court. Supreme courts are the highest courts in each state, the high court is the court of appeal for them. Though it's not that likely they'd grant special leave to appeal this particular case.

    9. Re:Did this cause $200,000 worth of damages? by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      The problem is, counter-intuitively you can defame people with the truth.

      Lets say Barack Obama has serious Asthma (I dont know, I'm just making this up as an innocuous example). Well, lets say he uses an asthma puffer quite regularly, in fact a bit more than the doctor recomends, he's a busy man and easier to huff a puffer than follow a full prevention plan after all. Ventolin is also a drug that the more you use the more dependent you can become of it, despite the fact its also utterly essential for warding off an asthma attack. In this case his only real crime is one we all commit from time to time, he's not paying his doctor enough attention.

      Now if I print "Barack Obama heavily drug dependent" and print whole stories about ommitting only the specific detail of which drug , I'm defaming barack Obama by creating the impression of him being some sort of henious depraved drug addict, despite the fact that technically I haven't told a lie. In an American court this would not be defamation and despite the fact that I'm harming the man greatly with my news empire for someting he really ought not be, he has no recourse because I told no lie, I defamed his reputation with the truth.

      Now despite whats being said here, in Australia, as of recently the truth really is a defense. In other words you could do the same to someone here. But previously the asthma libel could indeed be held to be defamatory.

      Its not as simple as "Did he tell the truth". You *can* defame someone with the truth, but usually they have no defense against you doing that to them.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  3. Dig a little deeper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Conveniently omitted by the original poster;

    "However, the jury found Google’s defence of the images broke down because it did not take any steps to remove the images from its searches once Mr Trkulja’s lawyers contacted the company."

    He asked Google to do something about it, and they refused. Hence the suing. Seems kinda reasonable to me.

    1. Re:Dig a little deeper... by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seems kinda reasonable to me.

      No, it's not. It's bullshit. I expect unfiltered results when searching.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Dig a little deeper... by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you find a search engine that does that, let us know!

    3. Re:Dig a little deeper... by Namarrgon · · Score: 2

      What error? Google isn't claiming that Trkulja may or may not be a gangster. They're claiming that there are pages that mention Trkjula in the context of gangsters, and here are the URLs.

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    4. Re:Dig a little deeper... by Namarrgon · · Score: 2

      The search engine is not incorrect - there are indeed pages that mention both "Trkulja" and "criminal". Mr Trkulja is incorrect to believe that Google is "tagging" him in any way. Google is merely presenting the results of a keyword search, not offering some value judgement.

      Mr Trkulja's name *is* in the context of criminals - he is the victim of a criminal attack. That does not make him a criminal himself.

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    5. Re:Dig a little deeper... by Bremic · · Score: 2

      Someone posts a article that accidentally mentions your name in relation to a scandal (say child-pornography for example. It was supposed to be a different name, but the person got it wrong.
      Someone else goes to your LinkedIn Profile (or something) and grabs a photo, which gets linked to the article.
      Google caches the search and the result.

      The original poster fixes the problem and pulls the content; Google refuses to.

      Then you go for a job, the potential employer goes to your LinkedIn profile and grabs the photo and does a search on that in google (which is common practice).
      They find a result for the photo and your name linked to a defunct article on child-pornography.
      Don't expect a call.

      This is the sort of thing the courts are there to protect us all from. Getting Google to pay a small sum in order to motivate them to prevent issues like this in the future is a good thing.

    6. Re:Dig a little deeper... by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      I shall refer you to this:
      The only way is for false accusations not to matter. That means no vigilantes; it means the law deals seriously with people who are dangerous paedophiles (so people have confidence that they don't need to intervene themselves) and it means people who cause harm to the falsely accused, for example by firing them from work, should be forced to fully and completely compensate them for that harm. - (emphasis mine)

      They find a result for the photo and your name linked to a defunct article on child-pornography.
      Don't expect a call.

      When people act in bad faith, which is what that would be, then they should pay the price. It's the believers, the followers that are more dangerous. They are the bad actors that are responsible for the hysteria. We need to pound it into their brains not to believe accusations without seeing direct evidence.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  4. Easy as 1,2,3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1. Find dodgy bloke and get photo taken with said bloke
    2. Upload
    3. ???
    4. Profit!

  5. If it was my company by msheekhah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would stop doing business in countries that don't seem to understand the difference between a search engine that indexes the internet and the original site that hosted the material. Screw them.

    --
    Mark Anthony Collins
    1. Re:If it was my company by gnasher719 · · Score: 2

      I would stop doing business in countries that don't seem to understand the difference between a search engine that indexes the internet and the original site that hosted the material. Screw them.

      I'm quite sure the court did perfectly understand the difference. But Google makes lots of money from its search engine, so the court expected Google to use some of that money to remove search results that pointed to websites defaming this man. The court didn't even expect Google to actively search and remove such search results, just to remove them when requested by the plaintiff's lawyer.

    2. Re:If it was my company by TFAFalcon · · Score: 3, Informative

      From what I understand the problem was that they didn't update their information once the original website stopped linking the picture with the plaintiffs name.

  6. Re:Ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You should do that. You don't have to worry about his mob connections, because they're not true.

  7. How was he defamed? by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 2

    Was he not actually standing next to the well-known douchebag? Was he photoshopped in?

    1. Re:How was he defamed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      My understanding was that when you typed in his name, Google found images of him from various websites as well as images from other websites of known underworld felons and put the thumb nails of these images side by side. The inference being that he was associated with these underworld felons.

      Its seems he then asked Google to modify its searches to dissassociate him with these underworld figures and they refused.

      Legal proceeding followed and the courts found that by their search engine associating his image with those of underworld felons, Google have slandered him. Note that Yahoo were also found guilt of the same offemce.

      So he ends up with a bit over AUD $425k (USD $441) for his trouble.

      Of course the elephant in the room for all this is why a gunman chose to enter a St Albans restaurant and shoot him in the first place? Or for that matter, knowing St Albans, where you would find a restaurant there worth dining in ;-)

  8. Dig even deeper.. by cyssero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Mr Trkulja had incorrectly filled out a form for reporting offensive material by not including the URL of the content to which he objected."

    Hello, Google? Yes, you know that image, I want it taken down as it defames me. Just do it and don't ask me these frivolous questions

    1. Re:Dig even deeper.. by gmhowell · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Mr Trkulja had incorrectly filled out a form for reporting offensive material by not including the URL of the content to which he objected."

      Hello, Google? Yes, you know that image, I want it taken down as it defames me. Just do it and don't ask me these frivolous questions

      He probably expected them to Google it on Bing or something.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  9. Oh Streissand effect... how I love you... by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm guessing hundreds of thousands of people just like me have been googling this guy's name.

    Of interest, I found this image:

    http://ozsoapbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/michael-trkulja-original-herald-sun-hitman-article-2007.jpg

    This guy is clearly one of "those people." Sorry, but I just don't have respect for them. I'm not going to bother defining for anyone what I mean by "those people" but I will say that "those people" tend to somehow think they can control information and by extension opinions and even thought. I'm sorry, but we live in a world with "an internet" now. Information is inherently free and free-flowing. He's a media person. He hasn't accepted that information... data... media...content... it's all out there and it cannot be controlled without pulling the plug on it. And humanity will not stand for it.

    1. Re:Oh Streissand effect... how I love you... by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 2

      Well, duh. He's a criminal or hitman or something. Google it.

      Clearly he thinks he can strong-arm the legal process as he does with everyone else in his life.

      --
      If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
  10. Re:How is it defamation if it's true? by bug1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its not true that he is an underworld figure, yet his image (not the underworld figure) and accompaying story stated that he was.

    The summary didnt mention that someone hired a hitman to kill him due to the mistaken identity, he was shot but survived.

    Still, its debatable how much responsiblity google should shoulder for further promoting the defemation.

  11. Milorad Trkulja should sue himself by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    He has defamed himself. His actions have labeled him as a retard.

  12. Re:Ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google pretty much has to appeal this decision:

    "Google Inc is like the newsagent that sells a newspaper containing a defamatory article," Beach said in his judgement.

    "While there might be no specific intention to publish defamatory material, there is a relevant intention by the newsagent to publish the newspaper for the purposes of the law of defamation." Beach said the jury was "entitled to conclude that Google Inc intended to publish the material that its automated systems produced, because that was what they were designed to do upon a search request".

    By that logic, Google and other search engines are liable for every piece of defamatory information which can be found on the web. That's a precedent Google can't afford to let stand, not unless they want to pull out of Australia entirely (which would serve Australia right.)

  13. Re:Effing Oz by green1 · · Score: 2

    While Australia is an American ally, and Australia is also a first world country, it should be noted that the two facts are not in any way linked.

    America is allies with several countries which are not first world countries, and several first world countries are not listed as American allies.

  14. Re:Effing Oz by green1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You could at least read the article you linked to. Your definition is more than two decades out of date.

    After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term "First World" took on a new meaning that was more applicable to the times. Since its original definition, the term First World has come to be largely synonymous with developed countries or highly developed countries (depending on which definition is being used).

    First World countries in general have very advanced economies and very high Human Development Indexes. On the other hand, the United Nations defined the First World on the wealth of the nation's gross national product (GNP). The definition of First World is now less concrete than during the Cold War.

  15. Re:How is it defamation if it's true? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The summary didnt mention that someone hired a hitman to kill him due to the mistaken identity, he was shot but survived.

    That's because the above statement is completely false.

    The article linked mentions that the shooting occurred years before but does not establish the importance of the shooting.
    Another article (http://dsm-publishing.com/australian-man-wins-landmark-case-against-google/) explains the significance of the shooting: his picture was put on the Melbourne Crime website when he was shot in Melbourne. The criminal figure Tony Mokbel was invovled in crime in Melbourne. Get it? Melbourne. Crime.