Google is attempting to avoid a court judgment in Australia by claiming that it will be disastrous for the internet as a whole. Google has requested the court to revoke a judgment from 2020, claiming that it will force it to “control the internet.”
It all began in 2016, when a Victoria state lawyer, George Defteros, asked Google to remove an item from its search engine results. The story includes a report on Defteros’ murder accusations stemming from the deaths of three individuals. The crime was linked to Melbourne’s well-known gangland murders.
When Defteros successfully showed that the article and Google’s search results had defamed him, the case went to court. Google’s effort to have the judgment overturned was refused by the Victorian Court of Appeals.
The High Court of Australia awarded a lawyer $40,000 in defamation damages for an article that Google refused to remove from its search engine because it considered the publication to be credible.
The problem, according to Google, involves one of the internet’s most basic building blocks – hyperlinks. The key point made by the company was: “A hyperlink is not, in and of itself, the communication of that to which it links”.
Google says that if the court ruling is left to stand, it will have to be “liable as the publisher of any matter published on the web to which its search results provide a hyperlink.” It will push Google to block news reports, even if they originate from reliable sources.
To read our blog on “Because of a bug, Google Maps is sending people to unsafe routes,” click here.