Slashdot Mirror
Google Found Guilty of Libel For Search Results In Australia
Meshach writes "Google has been found guilty for refusing to take down a libelous search result in an Australian court (ruling). Music promoter Milorad Trkulja sued Google for refusing to take down links to website articles promoting libelous claims that Trkulja was connected to organized crime in Melbourne. Google told Trkulja to contact the sites on which the offensive materials were posted, as those webmasters controlled the content. But the Supreme Court of Victoria decided Google was responsible for removing the damaging links the moment Trkulja asked them to remove the content. As a result of the jury's decision in the case, Google will have to pay $200,000 in damages to Trkulja."
Well, in terms of speech anyway. I don't think this would fly in the US unless some other corporate behemoth was the victim of the libel.
can I sue Slashdot for libel? The bastards incorrectly put "Troll" and "Flamebait" next to my posts.
This happened weeks ago. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-hit-with-200000-damages-bill-over-mokbel-shots-20121112-297gk.html
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
So, if you file a claim with Google -- probably not even under oath -- stating that certain content is libel, Google would then have to take down their links to the content, lest the Australian courts find that content to be libel and hold Google liable.
Which means that if you have access to the Australian courts, you can effectively cause Google to take down any website* without a trial, at little risk to yourself.
Good to know.
* Note: Anonymous Coward is not liable for damages incurred in the event that you attempt to take down a website owned by people with more money than you.
Clearly this isn't a case of Google doing anything wrong. It's a case of a judge or jury not understanding how the internet works.
Google doesn't own the content. Unless the individual wants to sue every search provider on the planet to get the results removed, he needs to go after the publisher/owner of the content, and not the search engine.
There are days that I hope the evil corporations are all destroyed in a revolution. There are other days that I think we are getting exactly what we deserve. Especially when 'educated' folks make decisions like this.
Cuz there's sumfin fishy down-under Loosieeeeeeee
Google probably has the ability to deal with the problem, if it spent money to write some custom code or pattern matching rule. But it sounds like the judges don't understand the Internet or imagine Google could conceivably do the same thing times the number of people in the world who imagine something is libelous at some time in their lives. I don't get what was wrong with what Google told him to do. Is there no higher court in Australia? Or does Google maybe want to wait a while for the society to change in its favor before testing it.
I wonder what the pinishment is to flood google with false claims. Also, is there a process to determine what is the truth.
That's outrageous; it implies that a search engine is required to censor? That's exactly wrong.
little over 2 weeks old
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/13/000229/200000-judgement-against-google-in-mokbel-shots-case
How can Google be responsible for content that it's just indexing and not generating themselves? The site owner and/or content owner are responsible for libelous statements. By their "logic", /. could also be held liable just for reporting on this!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Doesn't matter if they own the content or not. If you repeat a libel, prefacing it with the words "According to xyz..." doesn't remove your liability. No reason a seach engine should be treated differently.
But not before putting all links to Milorad Trkulja and all of his assets and associates on the Google search blacklist. Forever.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Clearly this isn't a case of Google doing anything wrong. It's a case of a judge or jury not understanding how the internet works.
Google doesn't own the content.
Doesn't matter. To do business anywhere on Earth Google must follow the DMCA, and they often remove search results because of it. To operate in Australia they must follow Australian law. I don't agree with their crazy laws, but Google isn't being forced to do business there.
I am particularly amused by these types of decisions requiring a third party to correctly guess the outcome of legal matters they are not a party or face some form of liability either way for guessing wrongly.
Do they have book stores in Australia? Does this same abstraction of guilt work there too or just against huge companies with deep pockets?
What about networks thru which this data flows? Can network operators be found guilty for conspiracy to propogate libel? Where does it end and why?
I wish google would have dug up actual evidence supporting criminal affiliations against this asshat... I assume the truth is an absolute defense even in the Soviet Republic of Australia?
There's a very good reason. Google is an index, not a publisher.
Little details matter both in computing and in law.
You can't just ignore them.
Perhaps the geezer on the bench would understand this if put in terms of an antique card catalog.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Exactly. By analogy, a vendor could be selling newspapers, kept behind a counter, where you could only read the headline for each article on the front page. To actually read the article, you'd have to buy the paper. Google is the vendor, allowing you to read an abstract of the linked page. In either case, just reading the headline/abstract and suing the vendor/search engine based on that is ridiculous.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
As they did not shut down the electricity at the offending site. And since they also power the monitors and light here where I read it, double damages.
Gently reply
It's not Google's link to the content but Google Cache repoducing and redistributing the 'libelous' content.
This has an easy solution. Since Australia holds Google responsible for any and all web site content for any and all websites their search engine indexes, disconnect all of Australia from Google. This court and jury decision makes about as much sense as jailing a person who makes a sign pointing the direction to China for all the human rights abuses that happen in China.
Fuck you Judge David Beach.
Now sue me, you wombat fucking pervert.
The International Collation of Wombats are suing you for libel for comparing them to the Judge David Beach.
Be seeing you...
to remove all links to any content that refers to Mr. Trkulja and ALL ventures with which he is associated. Just CYA.
Or maybe if you were the judge in this case, you'd side with the guy who according to Google has connections to the local mafia. Wouldn't want to wake up next to a proverbial horse's head.
Google knows that its business is going to get a lot harder if they actually have to take some responsibility for the information they disseminate.
They can't just cache everyone's content, scan it, link it - make billions of dollars off of it - and then tell someone else to shove it when they are asked not to distribute illegal content.
witold.org
Personally, I wouldn't pay it.
I own a company worth two damn Australias, if they don't damn like it, they don't have to use Google or any other engine that contained the same links.
This amounts to a shakedown by a money and power hungry bunch of inbred dolts that should've been replaced by Aborigines long ago, anyway.
It woudn't be a wise move to set a president for the internet based on the bullshit decrees of obviously insane attention whores like the Aussie Parliament.
We've watched them abuse their people over the internet since 14400 modems. Not impressed, putting them in their place by embarrassing them in front of the world, however would be minimum toll for this incredible waste of time, resources and bandwidth. No Google fiber for you limp wristed "Crocodile Dundee" killers. No, Google is for countries run by MEN, not some parlimentary wannabees who would blow a platypus for a chance to be in a REAL parliment of a REAL country, like England.
Yeah, whatta you gonna do now, cry about it?! F**king sissy's like you were gonna get a dime...
That's what I'd damn tell them.
There's also a photo of Trkulja next to the poster of Mladic (a guy who is at trial in Hague war crimes court). Maybe he's proud of that one though.
Once the person's identity drops off the internet, and all the pages praising/mentioning him too.
If you read the judgement (radical idea, I know), you'll see that a big part of the reason that Google was found liable here was the cached version of the article, as well as the Google Image Search results (which are a "page of Google's own making" not merely a link or reference to another source).
Indeed the judgement makes it quite clear that merely linking or indexing is not considered publication under Australian common law. Google themselves have been found not guilty in similar cases in Australia before, by relying on this defence. But this case was a bit different. There was the image search results, which Google must be assumed under the law to be the original publisher of (who else could be, given that the page is generated by Google and not exist anywhere else on the web?).
18 The question of whether or not Google Inc was a publisher is a matter of mixed fact and law. In my view, it was open to the jury to find the facts in this proceeding in such a way as to entitle the jury to conclude that Google Inc was a publisher even before it had any notice from anybody acting on behalf of the plaintiff. The jury were 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 being typed into one of Google Inc’s search products. In that sense, Google Inc is like the newsagent that sells a newspaper containing a defamatory article. 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.
19 By parity of reasoning, those who operate libraries have sometimes been held to be publishers for the purposes of defamation law. That said, newsagents, librarians and the like usually avoid liability for defamation because of their ability to avail themselves of the defence of innocent dissemination (a defence which Google Inc was able to avail itself of for publications of the images matter prior to 11 October 2009, and all of the publications of the web matter that were the subject of this proceeding).
20 As was pointed out by counsel for the plaintiff in his address to the jury, the first page of the images matter (containing the photographs I have referred to and each named “Michael Trkulja” and each with a caption “melbournecrime”) was a page not published by any person other than Google Inc. It was a page of Google Inc’s creation – put together as a result of the Google Inc search engine working as it was intended to work by those who wrote the relevant computer programs. It was a cut and paste creation (if somewhat more sophisticated than one involving cutting word or phrases from a newspaper and gluing them onto a piece of paper). If Google Inc’s submission was to be accepted then, while this page might on one view be the natural and probable consequence of the material published on the source page from which it is derived, there would be no actual original publisher of this page.
I would suggest you read the judgement, starting at paragraph 18. The judge specifically talks about the newsagent analogy, and why this is different.
Not that that makes the judgement sensible at all, but remember, the judge has to apply the law as it exists, not as he'd LIKE it to be.
I wish someone would libel me.
I don't think he was calling him a wombat so much as describing his bedroom proclivities.
I do not believe or endorse his sentiment or opinion and am merely giving my own opinion on his statement. His view, beliefs or opinions expressed above are his and and his alone and do not reflect the views, beliefs or opinions of this anonymous coward.
even if we believe he meant that the judge was a wombat fucker.
However, Google does indeed make it available for others to see. Without Google, there would be no way for the man to be libeled. That's a colonialist point of view you have there. Maybe, just maybe, others might think differently from us, and realize that society is in a new era where old mindsets don't apply. There is no 'right' and 'wrong', just different points of view, all of them equally correct.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This is recycling. Slashdot is now all about cheerleading for Australia. No, I don't understand it either, but it's a fact.
But not before putting all links to Milorad Trkulja and all of his assets and associates on the Google search blacklist. Forever.
This. You want to sue Google to remove references to something vague involving you and a third party?
Google makes you vanish from the internet, forever and ever amen.
This asshat got his five minutes of Streisand fame by suing Google. Result? No one ever hears anything about him, ever again. Aspiring musician? Try "can't even get a job at Tesco because a Google search says you don't exist".
Don't fuck with Google.
"I assume the truth is an absolute defense even in the Soviet Republic of Australia" Whilst IANAL, my understanding for both libel & defamation that truth is NOT previously considered a valid defence everywhere. Truth (from http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html) Truth (which is also called justification) is probably the best defence. Formerly in some states (such as NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT) truth was only a defence if you could prove that a ‘public interest’ was served by publishing the defamatory words. This requirement has been dropped from the Uniform Defamation Law and now there is a defence if the defendant can prove that the defamatory imputations are substantially true.
Our illustrious government & law-makers...fucking it up royally since 1838! :)))
God save the Queen & all of us lol !!!
There's a very good reason. Google is an index, not a publisher.
Not entirely. Google does re-publish excerpts of the sites it lists. If Google were a 100% pure index, your search results would look like this:
But Google does include parts of the result pages, and thus does re-publish content from elsewhere. They didn't create it, true. But neither does your radio station create most of the content it is publishing.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How is Google Image Search results a "page of Google's own making" any more than any text+url index search result is?
Yes, they cache the images so that you can actually search them but none of the images are first published by Google or originate from Google.
Unless they mean "technically" the thumbnails which is complete bullshit and bogus (the thumbnails are completely analogous to the small context text blurb on text search).
Or maybe they mean the time it takes for Google's spider to find out that that the original images have been taken down and no longer exist and thus need to be removed?
Problem: Some jerk publishes a book that libels me.
Solution: Sue the library!
Derp.
If caching is the same as publishing, proxy providers (some of which are ISP-provided) are in for some trouble.
If google has anything to do with it after this judgement no one who searches for Milorad Trkulja on google will know either.
Once Google started manually fucking with the results and rankings, they became responsible for the content as they were no longer simply a passive repository.
You know us Sydney-siders call them the People's Democratic Republic of Victoria for a reason....
Oh I agree, it's stupid. An effect of old law being applied to a new medium that it's not suited for.
The court's argument is simply that:
- A page of content has an 'original' publisher.
- The Google Image Search results page is generated by Google, and that page does not exist anywhere else on the web.
- Therefore, Google must be the publisher, simply because no-one else can be.
The issue as far as I can tell is that the concept of 'original publisher' doesn't work well in a world where 'publications' can be ~dynamically~ generated. The image search results is indeed a unique page that doesn't exist anywhere else, but it's really just an amalgamation of content from other sources, presented in a particular way...
The reason the internet revolution did not originate in Australia.
... which Google must be assumed under the law to be the original publisher of (who else could be, given that the page is generated by Google and not exist anywhere else on the web?).
But when you think about it, Google isn't actually the one who shows you the content (generates the image you see). It's your web browser. Or operating system's graphic output. Or the monitor. Google's system is completely automated, just like the other components I listed. I don't see how the Google page really differs from the others.
The publisher analogy just does not really work in this case, and should not be used as a basis for deciding what to do. This kind of situations need new laws, applying old ones does not work.
whoosh
gp was making a smart remark about the missing hyphen in ggp's phrase "wombat-fucking pervert"
Because when Google's algorithms 'group' related content together by a keyword, they have the unintended consequence of creating relationships between content as well which may not have previously existed and may be completely incorrect. Thus they are responsible for any of these new relationships, which is different from being responsible for the original content.
You didn't defame him, so he won't sue. He's a judge, and unlike you, he knows that insults are not defamation. He also knows that judges preside over cases that, in this instance, were decided by a jury. He also knows that he was not the plaintiff in this matter. I could go on, but how about you try reading the judgement and realise it's a little more complicated than you think it is?
1) Create a web presence.
2) Have a sock monkey libel you
2a) (Google indexes the libelous site, as they do everything.)
3) Sue Google
4) $$Profit!!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Shakedown
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Not only do claims need to be false, the person/corporation making those claims have to know the claims are false. If I were Google, I doubt I would know if Trkulja is involved in organized crime. And I would be very hesitant to censor search results simply because Trkulja requested them to be removed.
What do commonwealth countries have such screwed up libel laws?
There is caching and there is caching.
A caching proxy merely serves content that was specifically requested. Google's 'cache' is serving images that Google themselves are associating with a word or phrase. Thus Google is making some sort of editorial decisions in regards to the content that a simple proxy is not. Now that "editorial decision" may be being made by an algorithm and that algorithm may make it's decisions based on other peoples content but at the end of the day Google is in a very real sense curating that content.
It's a fine line (or perhaps a wide, murky continuum) but in the pursuit of being more useful to people Google has in many senses moved from a 'mere' indexer to an aggregator/publisher. As such it is probably not surprising that simply saying "hey, it's not us, we just link to what's there" doesn't always apply.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Perhaps the geezer on the bench would understand this if put in terms of an antique card catalog.
Nope. He's Australian. You'd have to explain what a card catalog was. Which would lead to having to explain what libraries are. Then you'd have to explain books. Then reading. Then writing. He'd probably get bored and fall asleep at some point during all the explaining.
Ugh this Milorad Trkulja guy sounds like money grabbing asshole.
Great,
1. Create a website writing bad about yourself
2. Make sure it gets intot he google seach engine
3. tell google to remove
4. Sue google and collect $200.000
christ, you're an ignorant moron.
Google is like a classifieds newspaper for the internet. If a classified newspaper was told that an ad they're publishing is libellous and they decided to keep publishing the ad, they would likely be held responsible.
Actually, Google did own the content.
The libelous material was already removed from the website google references. The libelous material only exists on Googles servers, no longer on the original website.
The content was removed from the original website from another lawsuit the guy won, he showed the results of that lawsuit to google before taking them to court.
He even won a smiliar case from Yahoo, which he also brought to the attention of Google, and still they didn't do anything.
I would have judged in favor of the plaintiff and I do know how the Internet works.
Theres another issue at play here.
The original website had already removed the libelous material. So if this were in fact a dynamically generated webpage, the images shouldn't be there anymore. As the source of them was removed.
The images were there because google made copies of it and stores them.
The indexing defense would work for me if the libelous material was still available from its original source, and dynamically generating an index of that isn't really publishing. However, they are making an index based on their cache, the cache which is no longer valid, and exists on their own servers.
That's what making it publishing.
Google needed just to refresh their cache and the material would be gone, and the plaintiff gave plenty occasion and reason to do just that.
People don't understand what Google is or what they do.
They built a machine. That machine takes the results it finds around the web and presents them as an answer to searches.
This is a big complicated powerful machine used to index many millions of sites, and used by many millions of users.
Some people are worried that Google *will* use their power to tamper with the results. I think it's pretty clear that they don't tamper with the results in any obvious way. For example, if you search for email providers, GMail is only one on the list, and not always at the top.
Then other people are concerned that Google will *not* use their power to manipulate the search results to remove things they don't like.
If Google publishes a link to a site that libels something, Google is simply reporting the news that "THAT guy said..." It doesn't mean that Google is itself saying that, agreeing with it, or disagreeing with it. A search result expresses no opinion or guarantee as to the accuracy of the original data. It just says "hey this is there".
Complaining that Google libeled someone is like complaining that a Gun shot someone.
google should pay the guy in pennies delivered to his front door.
Crying "Censorship" and "Stay outta my Internet" followed by "...but remove that content I don't like immediately or I'll sue!"
That Taliban sues Google for refusing to take down numerous websites telling Taliban are terrorists....
Good catch, and yeah, that is a pretty solid argument. Mod parent up :)
'A wombat(identity kept confidential) has come forward claiming that 'she remembers a period of sexual abuse by Judge Beach' that she has supressed deep in her subconscious.
It's very simple... Google should block off access to their services from the country of Australia. If Australia is unwilling to accept that there are things outside of the control of a business and cannot accept anything less than freedom of speech, they shouldn't get the privilage of using a search engine that finds information so well. They don't deserve it.
'Google Inc is like the newsagent that sells a newspaper"
WTF is a newspaper?
Let's all make money off of search engines with stupid claims like this one! Just for crawling the web and helping us find content.
So you fuck wombats too, eh?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'd suggest a simple test: can the so called libelous material be found without goodgle? (say, using another gateway site like excite, or bing) If so, then clearly google isn't the only route to this material, and shouldn't be held liable for it. (another argument would be: wny are you only suing Google when all these other indexes also have links to it? )
Kevin Seghetti: kts@tenetti.org, HTTP: www.tenetti.org GPG key: http://tenetti.org/phpwiki/index.php/KevinSeghett
And it's not just a free speech issue. It sets google up as worldwide content editor! Really Really BAD!