4 ms·

Lawyer was charged with murder. Google linked to an article which said that as a result organized crime had lost an important friend. Search result of his name

Lawyer was charged with murder. Google linked to an article which said that as a result organized crime had lost an important friend. Search result of his name turned up this article. Lawyer sued Google for publishing defamatory material. Google argued they weren't a publisher, but had merely hyperlinked to it. High Court agreed.

EGreg 4y ago
So how does this bode for the lobbying by Ruper Murdoch and co to force search engines to pay for linking to news articles ?
- weq 4y ago
  exactly. murdoch controls australia, nothing like a bit of outrage to get the tabloid pumping. he will no doubt now smear said high court judges
  - monkeycantype 4y ago
    Not tightly enough to win the last election though :)
  - stephen_g 4y ago
    Murdoch's grip is slipping. He failed to turn the last Federal election, and has failed with about five State elections despite publishing huge amounts of rabid nonsense about the party he was trying to get out and massive support for the party he was trying to get in. He used to have a very high success rate getting the party he wanted in, but in the last few years he seems less and less effective. Part of his issue is all his stuff has gone so far right with Sky News (especially 'After Dark' shows) and the tabloids (which also basically includes The Australian now), similar to how Fox News in the US went. But it seems that while he is pulling in a number of crazies, it's seemingly nowhere as big a proportion of the population as in the US. So more people seem to be switching off than getting pulled in (thankfully).
    - sumedh 4y ago
      > it's seemingly nowhere as big a proportion of the population as in the US. I think its because Australia has a Preferential Voting system.
      - stephen_g 4y ago
        Yeah, I am actually very thankful for preferential voting. The way it makes it possible for minor parties to exist and for independents to get in seems to me to be a very good thing.
- bloppe 4y ago
  Lol wtf does he think would happen if successful? That Google would pay the fee or just drop fox from all search results?
  - nl 4y ago
    Both Google and Facebook are paying in Australia. (In Australia his main publications are news.com.au and associated other mastheads, and Sky News. Fox isn't a player).
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Part of the law was that you couldn't drop one publisher, you had to pay for all news links or drop all news from the platform. Facebook claimed they would and actually did drop news for a few weeks but eventually backtracked and agreed to pay.
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    Australia has pretty terrible defamation laws, this was probably an attempt to make money. Sadly it usually works.
    - nl 4y ago
      This is unrelated to defamation laws in any way.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        > This is unrelated to defamation laws in any way. Did you even read the case-summary? "The respondent commenced proceedings, claiming damages for defamation from the appellant"
        simiones 4y ago
        Sure, the article is about defamation, but the current sub-thread is about Rupert Murdoch wanting Google to pay for linking to his news stories - which has nothing at all to do with defamation.
- incompatible 4y ago
  I think it would be irrelevant, since a specific law was passed in Australia forcing them to pay. I think it applies even to bare hyperlinks? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56410335 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56410335
  - exodust 4y ago
    Happening in UK too. https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/tech-giants-google-facebook-pay-news-under-new-government-plans-1432009 https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/tech-giants-google-faceb... Public broadcasters like the BBC love to gloat every few pixels about how trustworthy they are. Yet, they will have more secret commercial deals with tech giants to get automatic prominent positions in feeds, regardless of quality. They're already spending up on ads on those platforms, and now the money will move in both directions. What could go wrong?! In addition, the scheme involves harvesting data of users on the social platforms. It's a messy conflict of interest that encourages high volumes of low quality. Because that's all that's needed to get paid.
civilized 4y ago
Seems like a very easy case - kind of astonishing it wasn't already completely settled law. Why didn't the lawyer sue the actual publisher?
- saimiam 4y ago
  People are more likely to search Google and read a linked article about the guy than find the linked article just by randomly entering URLs in the browser without selecting anything from the autocomplete drop down.
- dgivney 4y ago
  The article is no longer available (since 2017 according to the Wayback Machine) so he probably did. https://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245041025.html https://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245041025....
  - cwillu 4y ago
    This is actually discussed in the decision: “The respondent did not sue The Age for defamation; instead, in 2010, the respondent sued two authors of a book that, amongst other things, contained a chapter based on the Underworld article. One of the two authors was also the author of the Underworld article. The claim settled at mediation, and it was a term of the settlement that the authors would make certain revisions to the book. In exchange, the respondent released the authors from all liability in relation to a number of matters, including any article published in The Age or its affiliated publications concerning the respondent.” [¶182]
- cwillu 4y ago
  As can be expected, a one paragraph summary of a 91-page decision necessarily glosses over almost all the complexities involved. Among other things, the court highlights an analogy of a google search to a librarian retrieving a book for a patron, including bookmarking relevant passages. And it's noteworthy that the librarian could in fact be guilty of publishing defamatory material, because “publishing” is a technical term. “It was not suggested by the courts below that the appellant, as an internet search engine operator, actually communicated the defamatory material. It is of course possible that search results may themselves contain matter which is defamatory. This was acknowledged in Trkulja 35 . But that is not this case. The question which arises here is whether providing search results which, in response to an enquiry, direct the attention of a person to the webpage of another and assist them in accessing it amounts to an act of participation in the communication of defamatory matter.” [¶23-24]
MarcoZavala 4y ago

EGreg 4y ago

So how does this bode for the lobbying by Ruper Murdoch and co to force search engines to pay for linking to news articles ?

weq 4y ago
exactly. murdoch controls australia, nothing like a bit of outrage to get the tabloid pumping. he will no doubt now smear said high court judges
- monkeycantype 4y ago
  Not tightly enough to win the last election though :)
- stephen_g 4y ago
  Murdoch's grip is slipping. He failed to turn the last Federal election, and has failed with about five State elections despite publishing huge amounts of rabid nonsense about the party he was trying to get out and massive support for the party he was trying to get in. He used to have a very high success rate getting the party he wanted in, but in the last few years he seems less and less effective. Part of his issue is all his stuff has gone so far right with Sky News (especially 'After Dark' shows) and the tabloids (which also basically includes The Australian now), similar to how Fox News in the US went. But it seems that while he is pulling in a number of crazies, it's seemingly nowhere as big a proportion of the population as in the US. So more people seem to be switching off than getting pulled in (thankfully).
  - sumedh 4y ago
    > it's seemingly nowhere as big a proportion of the population as in the US. I think its because Australia has a Preferential Voting system.
    - stephen_g 4y ago
      Yeah, I am actually very thankful for preferential voting. The way it makes it possible for minor parties to exist and for independents to get in seems to me to be a very good thing.
bloppe 4y ago
Lol wtf does he think would happen if successful? That Google would pay the fee or just drop fox from all search results?
- nl 4y ago
  Both Google and Facebook are paying in Australia. (In Australia his main publications are news.com.au and associated other mastheads, and Sky News. Fox isn't a player).
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Part of the law was that you couldn't drop one publisher, you had to pay for all news links or drop all news from the platform. Facebook claimed they would and actually did drop news for a few weeks but eventually backtracked and agreed to pay.
- gonzo41 4y ago
  Australia has pretty terrible defamation laws, this was probably an attempt to make money. Sadly it usually works.
  - nl 4y ago
    This is unrelated to defamation laws in any way.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > This is unrelated to defamation laws in any way. Did you even read the case-summary? "The respondent commenced proceedings, claiming damages for defamation from the appellant"
      - simiones 4y ago
        Sure, the article is about defamation, but the current sub-thread is about Rupert Murdoch wanting Google to pay for linking to his news stories - which has nothing at all to do with defamation.
incompatible 4y ago
I think it would be irrelevant, since a specific law was passed in Australia forcing them to pay. I think it applies even to bare hyperlinks? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56410335 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56410335
- exodust 4y ago
  Happening in UK too. https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/tech-giants-google-facebook-pay-news-under-new-government-plans-1432009 https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/tech-giants-google-faceb... Public broadcasters like the BBC love to gloat every few pixels about how trustworthy they are. Yet, they will have more secret commercial deals with tech giants to get automatic prominent positions in feeds, regardless of quality. They're already spending up on ads on those platforms, and now the money will move in both directions. What could go wrong?! In addition, the scheme involves harvesting data of users on the social platforms. It's a messy conflict of interest that encourages high volumes of low quality. Because that's all that's needed to get paid.

civilized 4y ago

Seems like a very easy case - kind of astonishing it wasn't already completely settled law. Why didn't the lawyer sue the actual publisher?

saimiam 4y ago
People are more likely to search Google and read a linked article about the guy than find the linked article just by randomly entering URLs in the browser without selecting anything from the autocomplete drop down.
dgivney 4y ago
The article is no longer available (since 2017 according to the Wayback Machine) so he probably did. https://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245041025.html https://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/17/1087245041025....
- cwillu 4y ago
  This is actually discussed in the decision: “The respondent did not sue The Age for defamation; instead, in 2010, the respondent sued two authors of a book that, amongst other things, contained a chapter based on the Underworld article. One of the two authors was also the author of the Underworld article. The claim settled at mediation, and it was a term of the settlement that the authors would make certain revisions to the book. In exchange, the respondent released the authors from all liability in relation to a number of matters, including any article published in The Age or its affiliated publications concerning the respondent.” [¶182]
cwillu 4y ago
As can be expected, a one paragraph summary of a 91-page decision necessarily glosses over almost all the complexities involved. Among other things, the court highlights an analogy of a google search to a librarian retrieving a book for a patron, including bookmarking relevant passages. And it's noteworthy that the librarian could in fact be guilty of publishing defamatory material, because “publishing” is a technical term. “It was not suggested by the courts below that the appellant, as an internet search engine operator, actually communicated the defamatory material. It is of course possible that search results may themselves contain matter which is defamatory. This was acknowledged in Trkulja 35 . But that is not this case. The question which arises here is whether providing search results which, in response to an enquiry, direct the attention of a person to the webpage of another and assist them in accessing it amounts to an act of participation in the communication of defamatory matter.” [¶23-24]

MarcoZavala 4y ago