Latest Australian court decision finding Google a "publisher" of defamatory material suggests a worrying ignorance of freely available online databases available worldwide on the Net (and on Cth & State library websites)

by Ganesh Sahathevan

                                                 

Algorithms have been around for a long time but
is only recently that judges in Australia have decided
that algorithms can be a method of publication

An Australian court has again decided that Google can be found to be a publisher, and therefore liable for defamation.

In her judgement in the matter of George Deferos v Google LLC Justice Melinda Richards said:

"The Google search engine … is not a passive tool,"

"It is designed by humans who work for Google to operate in the way it does, and in such a way that identified objectionable content can be removed, by human intervention.

"I find that Google becomes a publisher of the search results that its search engine returns to a user who enters a search query."

This writer will not say more, for fear of offending anyone, especially learned judicial officers. He will however ask readers to consider databases such as Factiva and others which are available via say, the NSW State Library website, or the National Library's Trove website,

This writer has used Google since 1999,and then other databases accessible via the Net and housed at the libraries named above, and elsewhere. He cannot see a difference between those databases, and Google's search engine.

END 

SEE ALSO 

Ganesh Sahathevan -Review of model defamation provisions - Justice NSW