Google ordered to pay $500K to Montrealer over links calling him pedophile

The connection between wrongdoing by Google is even more attenuated here, since Google is mostly an indexer, with limited curation.

Should ISP's be required to screen all their clients?

Then what about datacenters?

Then what about utility providers to the datacenters?

Then what about roads or food service to people who work at datacenters that host websites that promote false content?

I don't think it's a US-centric philosophy that the evildoer should be punished, not everyone who breathes the same air.

(And for anyone who didn't read the full text of the court's ruling, the URL was changed, the article was re-written, and eventually the person's name was misspelled to keep trying to evade Google's sanctions. How does anyone fight that level of misdirection and evil?)

This is Hacker News; the readership has a lot of temporarily embarrassed monopolists raised on business models that assume that the regulations that apply to others, don't apply to them.

I would guess it's narrower than that, and what you're seeing is mostly from SV. Even then, not everyone in SV is so willing to cut Google slack. But they can be the loudest on HN at times.

Also, legally If google were to start filtering the information it provided in the US based on some criteria other than "we think this is most likely what you were searching for, and look these people paid us to have you look at these first" then they would fall afoul to US laws that would remove their common carrier status. At least that is my understanding.

Also, what about the rights of its other citizens to get information?

I mean democracies tell each other what to do in one form or another all the time. The US is not at all shy about pushing other countries around. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

So much international law is about synchronizing laws to allow for dealing with these kind of things within a framework where we agree on the common principles.

Sad to say for the US ranters but defamation is a common principle and exists just as much within US law (albiet varying implementations).

Why didn't the plaintiff simply go after the publisher (the website) and get the false information removed (as well as sue for defamation).

irrelevant (and subjective anyway). it only matters if they have a legal responsibility.

My theory is it’s because tech is braking rules more and more often, and we all just love tech so it’s easier to just victim blame rather than address the actual issues.

Fine. But do not assume it should be a legal responsibility.

Rephrase the statement to "it has the responsibility to forbid defamatory content" and now you will start wondering if it should have prohibited fox news content on dominion voting or CNN content on Trump's hush money scandal.

> He also asked Google to remove links to the website, as well as a short extract from the site, on the search engine’s results page.

Emphasis mine. I'd argue laws and rulings can be contradictory in the first place, that's one reason there's judges. But here it's simpler than that: it's not just about linking, and the defamatory part was probably visible without having to follow the link.

Thus, I reject this argument unless Google is willing to argue its search result ranking is no better than random chance and that results on the first page are equally as relevant and useful as those on the last.

I know that "Bob says Joe is a pedophile" and "Joe says that he is not a pedophile". It is factually true for you to continue to say that "Bob says that Joe is a pedophile", but if that's ALL that your saying, then morally you're lying by omission.

It is of course an interesting question of how to boil this situation down to the reality of how a search engine works and displays results, but the general point stands that your presented situation isn't really representative of the ruling.

Oh, also in this specific case the claim wasn't that Joe is a pedophile, it's that Joe was a convicted pedophile, which if you want to poke at the morality of, would push Google into a even more precarious position, since that's harder fact. If Joe brings proof that he was never a convicted pedophile, then you repeating that "Bob says that Joe is a convicted pedophile" with no qualifiers is barely distinguishable from saying "Joe is a pedophile" from a moral standpoint.

I'm distressed further by other threads that begin to point this out being derailed with comments like "America should to keep to its own borders" and unrelated factoids about oil wars. This is not just an American precedent.

"The man, who is now in his early 70s, told the court that he believes potential clients have backed out of deals because they saw the post, adding that his career, which had previously been marked by success, began to spiral.

Two friends testified they refused to use their influence to help him find jobs because they worried the post would make those efforts fruitless.

His personal relationships also suffered, including those with his two sons, the ruling said.

One son testified that his girlfriend’s parents declined to meet his father because of the defamatory internet posts. The son said that after he experienced high-profile success, people would tell him they searched his name on Google and asked him about the post involving his father."

> [56] As for the possibility of suing the author of the Defamatory Post for defamation, the Plaintiff was advised by a lawyer in Town B that he was time-barred because, under [State A] law, the action must be brought within one year of its appearance, regardless of when the victim of the defamation sees the publication.[2]

> [57] The content of [State A] law in this respect is uncontested by the parties.

As for the owner of the website, it's a bit more unclear. It does say that the plaintiff corresponded with the website operator.

> [62] The email correspondence shows that Mr. Magedson asked Mr. T. U. to provide documentation from a police authority showing that the Plaintiff was never the subject of the kind of charges alleged in the Defamatory Post, a Kafkaesque reverse-burden demand to prove one’s innocence.

> [63] If that information were to be provided, Mr. Magedson stated that he would be willing to insert a statement that RipOffReport investigated and concluded that the post is not true. He said that the Defamatory Post would not be removed but certain words would be redacted.

> [64] Mr. Magedson said he never takes down a report posted on his site. In his last email to Mr. T. U., he signed off ominously with the following sentence, “We will all be blogged – good or bad, right or wrong – WE WILL ALL BE BLOGGED” (reproduced as is).

> [65] Mr. T. U. testified that he abandoned the correspondence with Mr. Magedson since he lost hope of obtaining satisfactory relief.[4]

I think it's because the 1 year from time of appearance also holds.

First suing Google is expensive, and you'd have to prove actual damages (loss of business, reputation, divorce) before a court a law. Cases such as these aren't a slam dunk. Why would anyone want to risk their reputation over that kind of unhinged and risky scheme? A man's reputation is everything.

Your thought experiment is far fetched.

I'm unsure if a US court would agree that search results would constitute defamation as well, but it certainly seems possible, especially if the search query was entirely neutral (i.e. just looking up this victim's name).

If Google provides a neutral search it should not be responsible for what the found search results say. If those are illegal, courts should go after the author.

But should Google search suppress and promote specific viewpoints beyond clearly neutral pagerank-style search, their top links become promotions. And Google can be held liable for what those show. My 2c, IANAL.

search results in Quebec

in Quebec

Libel is very restricted in the United States as well. Indeed, the whole "section 230" argument that keeps getting revived deals specifically with this topic (paradoxically by the "freedom" party), so clearly your "freedom" isn't quite as absolute as you imagine it is.

Further, Google was ordered to restrict the content in Quebec, and the fine they are paying is a tiny fraction of the money they make in Canada, which is a country where they have offices and significant business. I see zero reason why you decided to make this American centric.

Maybe suggest that anybody who took the time to view your post history would clearly see this?

I'd like to stress I'm not accusing you of anything - and wouldn't want to be responsible for the conclusions others might arrive at.

Would it be acceptable for the credit reporting agencies to tell them it is not the agency's problem and if they want to fix it they need to get the third parties the reported the false information to the agencies to fix it?