To add a little colour here, Mr Defteros was previously awarded damages and costs when he sued the authors of the article (and book chapter). Google was notified of the defamatory material in February 2016, but did not remove it until December 2016 after it had been accessed ~150 times.
In this case the court found -- paraphrasing a lengthy judgement here -- that having being notified of the defamatory material, and failing to remove it, Google is a publisher of defamatory imputations. As such damages were awarded.
Thanks for this, seems then things aren't quite as bizarre as the article makes them appear.
Any more background info? Mostly in terms of the takedown request. A successful suit giving the right to get anything directly based on the source material scrubbed elsewhere seems fair enough.
But how is an entity like Google supposed to supervise the validity of such claims? Seems ripe for abuse and no-questions-asked compliance lest they be sued.
Clear ground rules as in the EU seem like the only answer here.
This was the sixth case, including appeals, relating to this specific matter.
> But how is an entity like Google supposed to supervise the validity of such claims?
Without wanting to appear too glib, Google also indexes all the judgements! Otherwise, you raise an interesting question which will perhaps be answered in a subsequent appeal.
Australia's defamation laws are some of the toughest in the world and not in a good way.
There's been a few new articles about people having to pay big damages due to online reviews, social media posts[1] and how it stopped women speaking out over the me to stuff over here[2].
> "The Google search engine … is not a passive tool," she wrote in her 98-page judgement.
> "It is designed by humans who work for Google to operate in the way it does, and in such a way that identified objectionable content can be removed, by human intervention.
How are people this stupid allowed to become justices?
> "Her Honour has found that Google is a publisher of the defamatory imputations once Google receives notice of a defamatory publication online as a result of the use of its search engine," he said.
I think it is reasonable to argue that Google should remove results if they are notified of defamation. I hope that was the ruling in this case, because anything else would set a terrifying precedent.
How is it stupid? It's true. Google controls the results and the presentation of the results. The way Google behaves in the world has real world effects. Google hiding behind an argument that it's all automated and nothing to do with them isn't very convincing.
Well, it's your comment, you submitted it yourself, and you agreed to "release, indemnify and hold Y Combinator and its affiliates and their officers, employees, directors and agents harmless from any from any and all losses, damages, expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, rights, claims, actions of any kind and injury (including death) arising out of or relating to your use of the Site or any related information, any User Content (...)".
You did read the ToS[0], didn't you?
(Though seriously, did anyone? I didn't, and only opened that page to CTRL+F for a counterpoint right now :).)
I liked this part criticizing googlebot's poor research skills
> "I could not be satisfied that it was reasonable for Google to rely on Wikipedia as a reputable source, given that its own Guidelines acknowledge the variable quality of Wikipedia pages," Justice Richards wrote.
In this case the court found -- paraphrasing a lengthy judgement here -- that having being notified of the defamatory material, and failing to remove it, Google is a publisher of defamatory imputations. As such damages were awarded.