

Google loses Australia 'gangland' defamation lawsuit - ytNumbers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20153309

======
freehunter
It must be tough being a search engine these days. On one hand, you've got
people like this complaining that your software is working exactly as intended
and just linking to a website that is publishing reports that, at first
glance, link the person to a crime (which he is technically "linked" with the
crime, being a victim). On the other hand, once you start filtering results to
avoid these types of complaints, people start complaining that you are no
longer an impartial aggregator, and accusing you of potential bias.

I'm not saying the man was wrong for demanding Google take down the results.
I'm also not saying he is right. Google was working as intended. The site they
had crawled made an unfortunate implication. This isn't Google's fault, this
is the downside to being involved in a crime. You have limited control over
what others say about you or how they use your information. Google is in the
sticky situation of legally needing not to offend, but also legally needing to
be as impartial as possible. The courts are making this extremely difficult
for them. If anything is directly to blame, it's a lack of understanding the
nature of search engines.

This further goes to show startup founders the troubling legal situation that
exists in the world. Bring a lawyer onboard, but even then you have to
recognize that you will likely find yourself in a sticky situation at some
point.

~~~
Dylan16807
Hey nodrama, you seem to have gotten hellbanned for insulting QR codes,
despite usually making good posts.

In reply to your comment of:

 _it didn't work exactly as intended: "As a result of the attack Mr Trkulja
said that entering his name into Google Images brought up images of other
people beneath which his name appeared. He said some of these figures were
allegedly murderers and one a drug trafficker."_

If the internet thinks that his name is associated with murderers and drug
traffickers, then I think it's part of the job of a search engine to reflect
that. Search engines don't just help you find information, they also help you
find conversation.

~~~
colkassad
Regarding hellbanning, I just checked nodrama's history as well and there are
a lot of posts by nodrama since he/she was hellbanned. I tend to think before
I post so even a small reply by me may have taken me five or more minutes to
think about before composing.

It's sad to think of all the wasted time this person is spending posting here,
all because he/she called someone's post "stupid". Hellbanning should be
reserved for true trolls.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Moderation around here is hardly transparent, I doubt we'll see anything
change any time soon.

~~~
andybak
This seems like an especially egregious case. Where does one complain/appeal
round here?

~~~
DanBC
You send a very short email to pg with links to your user name and comments,
and asking for an unban.

Or you just create a new username.

~~~
andybak
Except the point of hellbanning is that the accused never knows they've been
banned.

Which is why it seems particular unjust in borderline cases. It should be
reserved for intentional trolls and spammer only.

------
darkarmani
This doesn't make any sense. Google doesn't make any claims about its search
results. They have mathematical algorithms that try to do a good job for
search.

How can anyone call this defamation? They link to websites that make
associations. Shouldn't he sue those websites instead?

He's just asking for it by angering the internet. I'm waiting for 4chan to
google-bomb him now.

~~~
DanBC
He's 62. There's a chance he doesn't have a good understanding of written
English. He types his name into a www Search engine, and sees results returned
that are his name, and photographs of criminals, or his name and words like
"gangland" or "criminal".

He fills in a form, but does so incorrectly.

IMO Google's notorious lack of customer support left them open here. Getting
him and his lawyers in a room with a good translator and someone who can
explain the situation and walk him through it may have avoided the court cost.
This is cheaper than the $250,000 that Yahoo have paid him.

But then I have no idea how many people send valid (but malformed) requests to
Google asking for tweaks to web-results. Maybe it's millions each year and
there's not much they can do.

It's hard to tell from the linked article when the "now defunct" website
became defunct, and why. Did it just close for normal reasons, or was it shut
down because of legal action? Because if a website was closed for defamatory
material, and Google still has a cache of it, and someone tries to get that
cache removed (but botches the request) then really Google should try a bit
harder.

Obviously my post contains a bunch of guessing, and Google is unlikely to
release information about this, so I'm happy to accept that perhaps I'm wrong.

~~~
endtime
So because he's old and confused, he should win nonsense lawsuits?

~~~
DanBC
Two judges in two separate cases don't think these are nonsense lawsuits.

I think technical companies should realise that sometimes unclueful people
will need to interact with them, and those people will not be able to use the
provided forms and will not be able to use the correct jargon but it is still
in the company's best interest to listen to, and understand, those people so
as to prevent court action.

You avoid court action because it's slow and expensive and because it is
unpredictable. (Although, since he'd already won a case, it's not that
unpredictable.)

What should this guy have done? He's tried to jump through the unnecessary
hoops, and it didn't work. Why should he "suffer"[1] while the multi-billion
dollar company makes money off "associating his name with criminality"[2]?
(Please note careful use of scare quotes.)

[1] for various values of suffer, including not something that's probably not
too severe for most people

[2] assuming they had ads on the search pages with the relevant results; and I
know the association (if any) is caused by the creators of the original
website.

~~~
darkarmani
I don't even understand why there should be a way for them to remove his
search results.

The search engine reports on what other sites say about people. They are not
generating new content -- they consolidate results that are a map of reality.
Silencing them, does not change the fact that the other sites have that
content. Google is reporting true facts in its search engine: this site says X
about Y. How is that not a true statement of fact? Truth should be (morally
not legally) a defense here.

This is where libel laws in these ridiculous venues goes wrong.

~~~
DanBC
I'm assuming he's already had the other sites remove their content, and he's
just trying to get the cache cleared. I'm assuming that he followed Google's
procedure to have the cache cleared, but made a mistake, and that's why they
didn't do it.

Rather than continue to struggle with a faceless corporation he just gave up
and went to law.

------
incision
Looks to me like Yahoo's lawyers set a precedent by previously agreeing to
equate linking to "publishing" and paid this clown off to the tune of $250K.

Now the clown and his lawyers are capitalizing on that judgement to collect
another check.

~~~
_seininn
It's clear from your comment that you are against the ruling and the man's
actions, but calling him "clown" doesn't add anything and, in some cases,
takes away from any point you're trying to make.

If you have a point to make, I'm sure you can make it without name calling.

~~~
bduerst
You're making an ad-hom attack for making ad-hom attacks?

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mbreese
Any one from Australia want to chime in here on how the court system is setup?
From the article, this was a jury trial, so that should mean that there will
be appeals following shortly. If this were left to stand, that would make it
very difficult to run any sort of automated search engine. You'd have to make
it possible to remove content from your index on demand - just because someone
might disagree with it.

From the article, they already have some sort of process in place to handle
that. Out of curiosity, anyone know where that is?

~~~
DanBC
> From the article, they already have some sort of process in place to handle
> that. Out of curiosity, anyone know where that is?

([http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663688))

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ArchD
Why not give him what he wants by simply giving no results at all for searches
involving his name? Making special cases in the software or data to take out
the offending links seems to imply non-trivial engineering complexity, and a
decent search engine as it is already has enough complexity for other
concerns.

He should have nothing to complain about, since it's not a right for someone
to be found in a search.

~~~
usea
If they do this for him, then that means anybody can successfully request that
google return no results for their name. Even names that are also commercial
products? If I was google, I would not want to be in the position of letting
people dictate what results appear when their name is searched.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also, names are not unique. Why John Doe #1 should have the right to remove
John Doe #2 from search results?

------
rprasad
This is to be expected. Defamation law works very differently in the
Commonwealth than it does in the U.S. (or in most other legal systems).

British and Irish newspapers have lost defamation cases _even though their
claims were proven true._ Unfortunately, Commonwealth defamation law does not
concern itself with the truth of statements--the effect on reputation is what
matters.

Edit: Changed UK to Commonwealth, as Australia is a Commonwealth nation but
not a UK member.

~~~
jim-greer
The 'truth of the statements' is not in doubt here. Google admits that there's
no evidence that he's a criminal. The question is whether indexing a 3rd party
site and showing images/snippets makes you a publisher. And whether once
notified, you have to evaluate the truth or falsity and take it down if false.
That's obviously not a scalable option for Google...

~~~
darkarmani
It is in doubt here. The truth Google is affirming is: "does a website say
he's a criminal." The only report on what other sites say. I'm not sure how
they aren't telling the truth when all of their generated content comes from
some source.

