A Canadian court has sentenced Google to pay the equivalent of €340,000 to an Internet user whose reputation was destroyed by a blog accusing him of pedophilia.
The case goes back several years, in 2007 more precisely. The complainant is a successful real estate professional. He “googled” his name after seeing that fewer and fewer clients were rushing to get his services. It was then that he discovered a article dating from 2006 accusing him of fraud and pedophilia on a Canadian blog. He contacts the webmaster of the site to delete this totally false publication, but the latter does not want to do anything, and even asks the victim to prove his innocence.
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In such situations, Canadian law requires the plaintiff to sue within one year of the publication of a defamatory article. It is therefore too late to sue him. Our man therefore turns to Google, which has the power to delete all the links that lead to the offending blog. After a waltz-hesitation that lasted several years, the plaintiff draws this bitter conclusion: the online search giant is being uncooperative and will not take down search results unless justice forces their hand.
Google must pay a large sum to this Internet user whose reputation has been destroyed
He is therefore suing Google and is claiming 6 million Canadian dollars in damages. Finally, the court awards him “only” $500,000insofar as he effectively “lost contracts and suffered a breakdown in personal relationships due to the erroneous accusations of pedophilia”.
Judge Hussain said: “This case raises questions […] on the responsibility of a company like Google […] for making available to users of its search engine a defamatory Internet message […] despite being informed that it was facilitating access to illicit activity”. According to him, this case will not make case law.
Source : Ars-Technica
