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.

[gstoddart]

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?

Re:Disturbing.

[Aighearach]

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."

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.

[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

Re:Disturbing.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Remove all comments for clinic

[caballew]

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