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Japanese Court Orders Google To Remove Negative Reviews From Google Maps

Posted by Soulskill on from the because-there's-definitely-nothing-worse-on-the-internet dept.

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.

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Disturbing. by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is censorship in the same way as "not allowing libel" is censorship.

    Wow, you're making an awful huge leap to libel.

    Because TFS says:

    "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."

    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.

    Removal of any kind of public content is troubling, particularly when the process behind it appears to be little more than an on-record denial.

    This is the heart of the problem ... how is the subject of the bad review denying it evidence of a damned thing? You can safely assume the doctor would deny it even if it was true.

    You simply have no basis to conclude libel.

    Have you stopped beating your wife?

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Remove all comments for clinic by caballew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google should remove all comments for clinic and instead just label on the map the clinic "Removed due to bad reviews"

  3. Re:A possible solution... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Alternatively, they can disable leaving and viewing reviews on the business with an error message of "Reviews for this business blocked due to lawsuit barring the publication of negative reviews."