Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Twitter
Yahoo!
TechnoratiGoogle guilty of libel for satanist rape suggestions
A French court has found Google guilty of libel after a man’s name was linked to several unflattering words, including ‘rape’ and ‘Satanist’ in the search suggestions. A Paris tribunal ordered Google to pay one euro of damages and 5,000 euros of costs to the plaintiff for public defamation.
The plaintiff, who has been granted anonymity, sued Google after the tools Google Suggest and Related Searches linked the words ‘rape’, ‘sentenced’, ‘Satanist’, ‘prison’, ‘rapist’ to his name.
In February he was given a three-year suspended sentence for the corruption of a minor.
A Google spokeswoman told Reuters that his company is planning to appeal the decision.
“Google Suggest is an aggregator of the most popular search requests, based on past requests,” she said.
Comments (2)
sounds guilty
why are so many people searching for his name with those terms?
Wha-huh?
"Sounds guilty"? Let's hope you never serve on a jury. It's possible to manipulate the suggestions that come up. See: "Google bomb."
React to this article