Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

17 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Disturbing. by Needs2BeSaid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Some things need to be said...
    1. Re:Disturbing. by Luckyo · · Score: 2, Informative

      This appears to be more of a bringing "internet way" closer to how things are done in real life.

      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.

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

    2. Re:Disturbing. by aevan · · Score: 2

      Depends. If it's pursuant to a defamation lawsuit... and slander and libel are things untrue... how is that review of lies helping your personal decision?

      Not entirely germane, but were the reviews involved not anonymous I'd be more inclined to side with them: their reputation versus the reputation that feels slandered. By hiding behind anonymity, they aren't really feeling the burden an unsubstantiated declaration should entail.

    3. 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.
    4. Re:Disturbing. by ADRA · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "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.

      --
      Bye!
    5. Re:Disturbing. by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Informative

      This appears to be more of a bringing "internet way" closer to how things are done in real life.

      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.

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

      No, if a poster is found to be libel in Japan, it is not taken down elsewhere.

      In this case, it is protected speech in the US because it is opinions that the reviewers believe to be true. If it is still not allowed under Japanese law, that is fine; I've never heard them accused of supporting Free Speech. But the idea that it would be taken down in the US is, well, "insane."

    6. Re:Disturbing. by pla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

    7. Re:Disturbing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    8. Re:Disturbing. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      That misuse of "it's" is disturbing.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    9. Re:Disturbing. by tomhath · · Score: 2

      The question is whether a review on Google can be accessed by someone in Japan (yes, of course it can).

      The court has ordered that the offending review be made unavailable to someone in Japan. Their proposed method for doing that seems to overstep the court's authority, but now Google has to decide if they want to go along or risk sanctions.

    10. Re:Disturbing. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

    11. Re:Disturbing. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's not insane at all. There is a Google subsidiary in Japan. If it doesn't comply it will be held subject to Japanese laws, say by being fined. Google could close its Japanese operation down to avoid the fine, but that would lose it billions of dollars in revenue.

      That's just the way the world is. If you do business somewhere you are subject to that place's laws, or at least the subsidiary you set up is. Some places, like the EU, seem happy for you to just comply with local laws when serving content to their own citizens. Some grant themselves more power. Either you comply or leave or pay the penalty.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Disturbing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Lawyer here.

      Based on your spelling of "honour," I am assuming you are not a U.S. citizen.

      Under U.S. law (with some exceptions under the libel laws of various states), a statement of opinion is per se not libel, as long as it does not express factually inaccurate information. Whether the utterance is anonymous or not, and whether the person making the statement shows up to "defend themselves" has no bearing on whether a statement is libel.

      Japanese defamation law is somewhat different in that even true statements can be found civilly and criminally defamatory if it damages the victim's reputation and is not in the public interest. But even in this case, the fact that a statement is defamation (not libel - Japanese law makes no distinction between types of defamation, despite the language used in TFA) is a product of the type of statement and intent and has nothing to do with whether the person "showed up in court."

      And no, Google should not take down the reviews in other countries. Japan's courts absolutely do not have jurisdiction to enforce this in any other country other than Japan, and Google would have to be a bunch of idiots to cave to this court, since it would only embolden other courts, not only in Japan, but in every other country in the world, to attempt similar shenanigans.

  2. A possible solution... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

    Upon receiving such a request, Google should no longer index any site or web page that links to or mentions those who demanded censorship in the first place.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    1. 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."

  3. 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"

  4. Jurisdiction? by zarmanto · · Score: 2

    Others seem intent on commenting on the questions of slander/libel/censorship... but I think a far more important question to pose is that of jurisdiction. I think that Google should simply permit Japan to have their way -- within Japan's sovereign territory -- but Google should not allow this ruling to have any impact whatsoever on what they display to users outside of that jurisdiction.

    This reminds me of when the US was attempting to obtain e-mails from Microsoft, when those e-mails were hosted on a Dublin server; I didn't agree with the United States' argument for jurisdiction then, and I don't agree with Japan's argument for jurisdiction now.