7 ms·

> Dr. Duffy posted a web report on the website “Ripoff Report” complaining about her dissatisfaction with the services she had received from the psychics on the

> Dr. Duffy posted a web report on the website “Ripoff Report” complaining about her dissatisfaction with the services she had received from the psychics on the Kasamba site. She also commented on the reports of others about the psychics. She created a chat group “kasambavictims” on Yahoo. Dr. Duffy also posted messages under a pseudonym, and began to email the site complaining that her friend’s wife had committed suicide due to bad advice given by the psychics. This was untrue. Very interesting part. Later in the article: > In relation to justification (truth), the Court found no evidence supporting Google’s argument that Dr. Duffy stalked or persistently and obsessively harassed any of the psychics. Am I missing something important here? Dr. Duffy clearly defamed a business with a lie, and some other people (other site users) pointed this up, in a very cruel way, to her in a forum with user submitted content. Then Dr. Duffy sues Google instead of the Ripoff Report forum?

kikokikokiko 3y ago
I find it amusing that I feel no empathy at all to ANYONE involved in this case. The "psychics" are just low-life scammers that prey on the stupid/mentally ill, and things like this case are bound to happen to them from time to time. Google is Google, everything that makes the evil tech lords suffer a little bit is a plus for mankind. And this woman seems to be just an insufferable crazy cat lady, so good riddance to all involved. It's a win-win-win for humanity.
- DrJaniceDuffy 3y ago
  I'd rather be 'an insufferable cat lady' who stands up for her rights than an asshole - lol!
xyst 3y ago
Whether the plaintiff defamed another business or not is not the subject of this case. The case is about Google continuing to publish defamatory statements generated from “Rip off Reports” content despite being forced to comply with the request in 2011. Now I do agree the plaintiff can also be sued for damages by the psychic company for defamation. That’s my take on this. I do agree the premise of the case is odd. The in depth case review doesn’t seem to mention if she actually went through the process of having the primary publisher (Rip-off reports) remove the defamatory information.
arp242 3y ago
Posting messages and making up that a friend's wife committed suicide is not really "stalking" or "persistently and obsessively harassing". Immoral and possibly illegal? Perhaps. But that's not the same thing. Also, Duffy was ripped off by Kasamba. I think the crux of the matter is: even if you did something wrong, do things like that really need to be preserved on the internet under your real name for the rest of your life? Probably not. And do we really want Google to be suggesting this content years after this minor spat, guaranteeing that people will find it? "Right to be forgotten" is really about this kind of stuff IMHO: okay, you've had your five minutes of shame and that's all fine, and now lets all move on instead of keeping this prominent for years or even decades.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  > Also, Duffy was ripped off by Kasamba. Can you really be ripped off by psychics? It's not like you can sue a church because your prayers haven't been answered, so I'm not sure of religion or spiritualism can be a "rip-off". If someone tells you they'll talk to your dead ancestors for money and you don't believe them, who's to say who's speaking the truth? The best you can do is use reasoning like "there's no scientific basis for an afterlife" but that's not a great defence if you're honestly trying to speak to the dead. I agree with your other points, of course. I'm just amused at the idea of suing psychics for not telling the truth.
  - arp242 3y ago
    "Ripped off" in the colloquial sense, not in the strict legal sense. Most psychics don't actually believe what they're selling, whereas most priests do. Prayer also works very different: a psychic will tell you "higher powers told me this man is a {good,bad} match for you", whereas a priest will tell you to "pray and ask God for guidance" and/or offer you some general advice, but they won't say "God told me to relay that [..]". Should they be sued for it? Probably not. But I do think most psychic "customers" get ripped off by people who are essentially little more than confidence tricksters, but I don't think most people who go to church get ripped off (outside of the "send me your money and go to heaven" kind of twattery).
  - 3y ago
munk-a 3y ago
Google was not a party to this interaction until they voluntarily chose to be. That's a huge thing to remember with aggregators and the like - they're voluntarily reposting information and accept the benefits along with the liability of doing so. Platform immunity does exist for a lot of the common situations - but it doesn't cover everything.
carlosjobim 3y ago
> Am I missing something important here? Dr. Duffy clearly defamed a business with a lie... What you're missing is that you can't defame a business. Only if that business is very strongly connected to a single person.
DrJaniceDuffy 3y ago
I'd like to clarify if I may. Firstly, thank you for you comments. I indeed did get scammed at a time when I was going through a very bad depression which actually had a physiological cause. I thought the website Ripoff Report was a legitimate complaint website. In fact, there are hundreds of complaints about Kasamba (and under its previous name 'Liveperson)on both Ripoff Report and other websites. I started a support group for others who were scammed. It is not a crime to for vulnerable people to be scammed - people lose millions each year to scams. The defamatory content about me was written to try and stop the support group. Kasamba 'experts' were scamming vulnerable people of thousands of dollars. I had 18 days to prepare for the first trial and no idea what I was doing. A friend did commit suicide but I couldn't obtain any evidence. The court can only rule on the evidence before it and I had no idea what I was doing in a court room in which I was alone and facing a bank of highly paid lawyers. In the second trial (2022) I had a witness from the support group to say that someone did commit suicide but she was terrified that the Google lawyers would know her name because they previously distributed legal documents about a friend of mine to techdirt.com. I did not know it at the time but Ripoff Report is an extortion racket. Evidence supporting this from the US courts was put into my recent liability judgement. In fact, how it operates is that the website publishes often false content and then charges tens of thousands of dollars to remove it. A 2023 judgement found that it charges USD$5,500 to remove a link https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00393/pdf/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00393-0.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00... There are a number of other cases, for example, https://casetext.com/case/xcentric-ventures-llc-v-borodkin-7 https://casetext.com/case/xcentric-ventures-llc-v-borodkin-7 in which the court has upheld the extortive business practices. I could not sue Ripoff Report because of section 230 of the communications decency act and the speech act of 2010. I only filed proceedings because I thought it would result in removal. I was wrong and Google decided to use me as an example and refuse to 'mediate'. I just wanted it removed but google decided it would try to bully me into going away rather than mediate or remove it properly. This is the latest 2023 decision on liability.https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASC/2023/13.html?context=1;query=duffy%20v%20google;mask_path= https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASC/... This is the second liability

kikokikokiko 3y ago

I find it amusing that I feel no empathy at all to ANYONE involved in this case. The "psychics" are just low-life scammers that prey on the stupid/mentally ill, and things like this case are bound to happen to them from time to time. Google is Google, everything that makes the evil tech lords suffer a little bit is a plus for mankind. And this woman seems to be just an insufferable crazy cat lady, so good riddance to all involved. It's a win-win-win for humanity.

DrJaniceDuffy 3y ago
I'd rather be 'an insufferable cat lady' who stands up for her rights than an asshole - lol!

xyst 3y ago

Whether the plaintiff defamed another business or not is not the subject of this case. The case is about Google continuing to publish defamatory statements generated from “Rip off Reports” content despite being forced to comply with the request in 2011. Now I do agree the plaintiff can also be sued for damages by the psychic company for defamation. That’s my take on this. I do agree the premise of the case is odd. The in depth case review doesn’t seem to mention if she actually went through the process of having the primary publisher (Rip-off reports) remove the defamatory information.

arp242 3y ago

Posting messages and making up that a friend's wife committed suicide is not really "stalking" or "persistently and obsessively harassing". Immoral and possibly illegal? Perhaps. But that's not the same thing. Also, Duffy was ripped off by Kasamba. I think the crux of the matter is: even if you did something wrong, do things like that really need to be preserved on the internet under your real name for the rest of your life? Probably not. And do we really want Google to be suggesting this content years after this minor spat, guaranteeing that people will find it? "Right to be forgotten" is really about this kind of stuff IMHO: okay, you've had your five minutes of shame and that's all fine, and now lets all move on instead of keeping this prominent for years or even decades.

jeroenhd 3y ago
> Also, Duffy was ripped off by Kasamba. Can you really be ripped off by psychics? It's not like you can sue a church because your prayers haven't been answered, so I'm not sure of religion or spiritualism can be a "rip-off". If someone tells you they'll talk to your dead ancestors for money and you don't believe them, who's to say who's speaking the truth? The best you can do is use reasoning like "there's no scientific basis for an afterlife" but that's not a great defence if you're honestly trying to speak to the dead. I agree with your other points, of course. I'm just amused at the idea of suing psychics for not telling the truth.
- arp242 3y ago
  "Ripped off" in the colloquial sense, not in the strict legal sense. Most psychics don't actually believe what they're selling, whereas most priests do. Prayer also works very different: a psychic will tell you "higher powers told me this man is a {good,bad} match for you", whereas a priest will tell you to "pray and ask God for guidance" and/or offer you some general advice, but they won't say "God told me to relay that [..]". Should they be sued for it? Probably not. But I do think most psychic "customers" get ripped off by people who are essentially little more than confidence tricksters, but I don't think most people who go to church get ripped off (outside of the "send me your money and go to heaven" kind of twattery).
- 3y ago

munk-a 3y ago

Google was not a party to this interaction until they voluntarily chose to be. That's a huge thing to remember with aggregators and the like - they're voluntarily reposting information and accept the benefits along with the liability of doing so. Platform immunity does exist for a lot of the common situations - but it doesn't cover everything.

carlosjobim 3y ago

> Am I missing something important here? Dr. Duffy clearly defamed a business with a lie... What you're missing is that you can't defame a business. Only if that business is very strongly connected to a single person.

DrJaniceDuffy 3y ago

I'd like to clarify if I may. Firstly, thank you for you comments. I indeed did get scammed at a time when I was going through a very bad depression which actually had a physiological cause. I thought the website Ripoff Report was a legitimate complaint website. In fact, there are hundreds of complaints about Kasamba (and under its previous name 'Liveperson)on both Ripoff Report and other websites. I started a support group for others who were scammed. It is not a crime to for vulnerable people to be scammed - people lose millions each year to scams. The defamatory content about me was written to try and stop the support group. Kasamba 'experts' were scamming vulnerable people of thousands of dollars. I had 18 days to prepare for the first trial and no idea what I was doing. A friend did commit suicide but I couldn't obtain any evidence. The court can only rule on the evidence before it and I had no idea what I was doing in a court room in which I was alone and facing a bank of highly paid lawyers. In the second trial (2022) I had a witness from the support group to say that someone did commit suicide but she was terrified that the Google lawyers would know her name because they previously distributed legal documents about a friend of mine to techdirt.com. I did not know it at the time but Ripoff Report is an extortion racket. Evidence supporting this from the US courts was put into my recent liability judgement. In fact, how it operates is that the website publishes often false content and then charges tens of thousands of dollars to remove it. A 2023 judgement found that it charges USD$5,500 to remove a link https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00393/pdf/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00393-0.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-casd-3_22-cv-00... There are a number of other cases, for example, https://casetext.com/case/xcentric-ventures-llc-v-borodkin-7 https://casetext.com/case/xcentric-ventures-llc-v-borodkin-7 in which the court has upheld the extortive business practices. I could not sue Ripoff Report because of section 230 of the communications decency act and the speech act of 2010. I only filed proceedings because I thought it would result in removal. I was wrong and Google decided to use me as an example and refuse to 'mediate'. I just wanted it removed but google decided it would try to bully me into going away rather than mediate or remove it properly. This is the latest 2023 decision on liability.https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASC/2023/13.html?context=1;query=duffy%20v%20google;mask_path= https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/sa/SASC/... This is the second liability