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Court Rules Google's Search Results Qualify As Free Speech
wabrandsma writes with this news from Ars Technica: The regulation of Google's search results has come up from time to time over the past decade, and although the idea has gained some traction in Europe (most recently with "right to be forgotten" laws), courts and regulatory bodies in the U.S. have generally agreed that Google's search results are considered free speech. That consensus was upheld last Thursday, when a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Google's right to order its search results as it sees fit.
Maybe it will get appealed to the SCOTUS. Or congress will change the legislation relevant to this. Remember what happened to Rick Santorum...
Even our "liberal" jurisdictions think that companies are people. What a fucked up country.
So, if Google's search results are considered free speech, do they also have the same responsibilities as other forms of free speech.
What if you search for a person and the results incorrectly suggests that the person is a pedophile? Does that qualify as libel, or is that suddenly not Google's problem?
While I agree with the ruling, I don't see how the first amendment applies. It states that "Congress shall make no law..." but since this was a civil case, and did not involve congress, how does the first amendment apply? Google should win the case simple because Google can do whatever they want in their search results. It is as simple as that. Applying the term "free speech" or "first amendment" to a computer generated algorithm seems like a slippery slope to me.
I just read the ruling: the case was dismissed because "the claims asserted against it arise from constitutionally protected activity..." so nothing to get excited about here...
If the corporation 'in no way represents the views of shareholders, officers, or employees', WTF is it representing? What exactly are you smoking?
It was a lawsuit claiming Google broke a law. If there can be no law, there can be no lawsuit.
So all the results that were removed thanks to the DMCA are not protected free speech?
DMCA trumps free speech?
I think the quote from UCLA law professor Eugene Volok in the article stated it best:
Think of Google as a massive guidebook. You ask it for information on X and it returns a list of results that it thinks (based on the algorithms) best match X. If someone made a list of "Top 10 Restaurants in New York City" and a restaurant owner was upset that his restaurant didn't make the list, would he be able to sue to get his included as the #1 restaurant in NYC? Of course not. The list publisher has the right to determine who they think are the top 10 restaurants. Likewise, Google has the right to determine who they think are the top matches for any given search.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You mean, to present them from least relevant to totally irrelevant?
AC comments get piped to
So, if Google's search results are considered free speech, do they also have the same responsibilities as other forms of free speech. What if you search for a person and the results incorrectly suggests that the person is a pedophile? Does that qualify as libel, or is that suddenly not Google's problem?
It's not Google's problem to report that somebody else made a libelous claim any more than if you tell your neighbor "Hey, that guy John Doe down the street put on the internet that you're a convicted child molester but I know that's not true", your neighbor would have a legal claim against John Doe, not against you for telling him. The fact that Google reports a search result doesn't make them responsible for the content in the USA. Things might be different in Europe though.
Deceptive trade practices.
They are portraying it as search results based on a query made by people that google has been pandering to. Google has portrayed the results as searched criteria, and people have reasonable expactations that is exactly what they are getting. Google is providing a fraud.
This is right up with those "news" shows that are actually entertainment, but a majority think they actually provide "news".
So this is actually a freedom of the press issue?
That at least seems to be more relevant, make more sense, and avoids expanding this whole "corporations are people" nonsense.
You can do the right thing and still do it for the wrong reason and manage to cause collateral damage. This is another fine case of that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Some founders' fears were correct.
RE: A different Supreme Court such as the current one might well have come to the other conclusion that if it's not mentioned explicitly, it doesn't exist.
Such a court would be or is traitorous and should be subject to the judgements and penalties reserved for traitors. I would opt for expulsion from the Union, but many would call for more severe or violent penalties.
A key battle over the bill of rights was the concern that some idiots would think this way, when the Constitution was clearly designed to reserve any rights not explicitly abridged to the states or the people. (The part about leaving them to the states was also a mistake, since organizations like ALEC have simply used cash to bribe states into colluding to restrict the rights of individuals and elevate the rights and powers of the governments and their corporate paymasters.)
It was a lawsuit claiming Google broke a law.
Not it was not. No one claimed Google broke any law, and the government was not on either side of the case. This was a civil case, where someone thought Google was treating them unfairly.
Google is a business and has every right to be as silly as the Enquirer if it wants to be. And ... ... where are all the OTHER brazillion search engines in all this?
Google, Google, Google, why is it always Google? Momma always did like Google, best.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
And similar sites? After all, they don't host the content, they merely provide a search engine for the content.
Legal double standard in 3...2...1...
Now, robots have rights.
From TFA (emphasis mine):
The owner of a website called CoastNews, S. Louis Martin, argued that Google was unfairly putting CoastNews too far down in search results, while Bing and Yahoo were turning up CoastNews in the number one spot. CoastNews claimed that violated antitrust laws. It also took issue with Google's refusal to deliver ads to its website after CoastNews posted photographs of a nudist colony in the Santa Cruz mountains.
It was a lawsuit claiming Google broke a law.
Not it was not. No one claimed Google broke any law, and the government was not on either side of the case. This was a civil case, where someone thought Google was treating them unfairly.
Are you kidding?!? It was specifically a claim that Google broke a law - 15 U.S.C. 1–7 by not ranking using the same criteria as Bing and Yahoo (which is ridiculous anyway, since Yahoo is "powered by Bing!" so of course it has the same rankings).
You can read more about the Sherman Antitrust Act here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Civil cases still determine the right and wrong side by applying... the law.
Without Congress creating the court, how can there be a civil case? The court's decisions would be unenforcible, and they wouldn't have laws by which to judge cases anyway.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Okay, I stand corrected. So they invoked antitrust law. Maybe first amendment angle was just to get people riled up. Arggh, I think legal reporting is almost as bad as technology reporting. Although overall arstechnica is pretty good on that.
It isn't always clear at a distance where a state court stands in the larger scheme of things and how much weight should be given its decisions.
In California, a Superior Court is simply one of 58 consolidated county and municipal trial courts.
Before June 1998, California's trial courts consisted of superior and municipal courts, each with its own jurisdiction and number of judges fixed by the Legislature. In June 1998, California voters approved Proposition 220, a constitutional amendment that permitted the judges in each county to merge their superior and municipal courts into a ''unified,'' or single, superior court. As of February 2001, all of California's 58 counties have voted to unify their trial courts.
Superior Courts
A few other people chimed in and pointed out quotes indicating that the lawsuit might have been based on antitrust claims. That makes more sense than the first amendment thing.
It was a lawsuit claiming Google broke a law.
Not it was not. No one claimed Google broke any law, and the government was not on either side of the case. This was a civil case, where someone thought Google was treating them unfairly.
Even though the government was not a plaintiff or defendant, it is still our laws that are being used to determine if the lawsuit wins. In this particular case it was anti-trust laws which were being examined.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So if search results are free speech, then does that mean that law enforcement can't force them to remove search results via DMCAs? It's still not illegal material, but rather effectively *talking about* (linking to) illegal material that was generated/hosted by someone else. It's always been odd to me that you can write an article about an entire collection of sites (including ones that are illegal), or even archive them, but a search engine can't auto-index a complete set of sites (including the ones that are illegal).
bravo!
I think that is a very true and logical assessment. It's just unfortunate that Google has become so ubiquitous. People can choose to use another search engine, but rarely do. It's already very difficult to run a business if Google isn't putting your business high in their ranks. I believe for the time being the listing process is mostly working, but as they continue on I worry that Google could become the gatekeepers of the internet. Pay the fee and kiss the ring or the internet will never know you exist.
True, but if you are going to sue Google, you had better be able to prove that Google lowered your ranking with malicious intent. That is, not because you weren't following SEO rules that they apply to all websites but because Google just decided "we don't like this guy" and ranked you lower. If your argument is "we want to be the first listing and we're going to file suit to make this so", then you deserve to lose.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'm intrigued by this theory that, if two corporations act differently, without any collaboration, that's a violation of anti-trust law.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
While this is a state case, the courts within the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit have consistently ruled in favor of Google and Apple in most cases. In addition, they have taken a huge biased stance against crime victims routinely ruling in favor of prison reform advocates who want to eliminate jails and decriminalize rape, murder, robbery, etc.
While I personally feel the criminal justice system needs fixing, people who are victimized by others deserve restitution and relief from offenders and predators. The Courts in California have a very warped view on privacy and justice right now, so siding against those who want images of them taken down or removed from Google is not in the least bit shocking.
It should be noted that the Courts and the judiciary have a whole team of security experts devoted to maintaining their internet presence on Google and social media sites. That means removing negative content from offline, prosecuting anyone who says anything negative or posts anything negative about Court judges from online. Journalists are routinely discriminated against and targeted by the state courts for exercising their first amendment rights to write about corruption in the messed up court system. The problem is ultimately the Courts in that jurisdiction not those who are angry at Google for what Google is doing.
Its called freedom of expression, that is part of the first amendment. Which a corporation or an individual is well within their rights to do. However, when you express yourself in a way that harms someone else your actions get called into question. If you have stolen images or content that belong to someone else then your rights butt heads with their rights. Everyone has a right to privacy, to protect themselves, their property and their image so its really a civil rights battle.
Congress makes laws, but nothing can supercede the constitution without an amendment to it. Federal laws are preeminent to state laws, meaning they supercede the state's jurisdiction on this issue. Code is considered speech like writing a book. You can copyright your code which you have written, so it is protected under the first amendment.