Japanese Court Orders Google To Remove Negative Reviews From Google Maps

An anonymous reader writes: As reported by TechCrunch, the Japenese Chiba District Court issued a preliminary injunction forcing Google to delete two anonymous reviews for a medical clinic. Although negative, neither review violates Google policies. "The decision is based on a defamation suit from the clinic, a key part of which included an affidavit from the doctor who interacted with the anonymous reviewers and denied their claims." And here is the key part: "The court ruled that Google not only removes the content in Japan, but across the entire globe too." Google is currently considering it's options including an appeal.

Comments

Disturbing.

[Needs2BeSaid]

This is a terrible ruling. Why are people so insistent on making the internet a Brady Bunch, rainbows and unicorns, version of reality? How are people supposed to make personal decisions when half, or more, of the information is censored? As much as I hate the size and power of Google, I hope they stand their ground.

Re:Disturbing.

[ADRA]

"It's not libel if it's true, and just because the doctor who was negatively reviewed says "nuh uh, am not" does NOT establish anything at all resembling libel."
If you go to a court of law and the anonymous party doesn't defend themselves then 100% its libel. If you don't stand up for your point, it has zero credability.

On the flip side, Google should honour the japanese take-down in Japan while allowing for the clinic to follow similar law suits in other nations if they find it necessary for a similar ruling. Having a carte-blanche international force on any entity isn't great without international level of oversight. Japan, the US, China, Tajikstan, etc.. shouldn't carry unilateral control over information that may be politically or economically damaging without reasonable oversight.

Re:Disturbing.

[pla]

As in if someone anonymously puts up a poster on private land that defames you, you actually get to challenge it in court and if it's found to be libel it's taken down.

Uh, no. Not even close to how it works in reality.

If I put up a poster in my front yard (in the United States) defaming a Japanese doctor, a Japanese court has zero ability to make me take it down.

Look at this from a less "I personally approve of this ruling" angle - If a Saudi court rules that the New York Times needs to recall an issue for an offensive cartoon, would you expect the NYT to actually round up every printed copy in the US, or just to stop the delivery of that day's issue to Saudi addresses?

Re:Disturbing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The original story doesn't actually indicate the comments were or were not libel. What it does say is the lawyer won his defamation case in court, based on his (sworn?) affidavit(s). Implied is that the commentors had opportunity to respond. Until we know more, we must assume that the comments are considered libelous in Japan and could be here, as well.

The real story is that Google is now expected to go scrub like comments from the rest of the web, not just their search engine. I think if I were Google's lawyers, I'd prepare a letter to that court/judge and to their equivalent of the US DOJ asking for international deputization so Google could go forth and act as the court demands, since Google has no legal authority to do so without it. That should tie the court up for years and cause some serious rethinking.

Re:Disturbing.

[UnknownSoldier]

If you are single, the "correct" answer is mu which means "not applicable."

As in, the question _presupposes_ conditions which are not true. If you are single, you are not married by definition.

Truth is not a mutually exclusive binary state of True / False.

> One can stop before performing the action.

No, one never started