Wulff, 38, was Germany’s youngest first lady when her husband Christian Wulff became president in 2010, has since then battled persistent rumors that she worked as an escort before the two met. Although the first lady has denied the rumors, but of course that usually has no bearing on whether or not they continue to exist online.
But regardless of the denial, she was initially celebrated in the German media as a glamorous and individualistic woman, with endless column inches devoted to the tattoo on her arm and her fashion sense, seemingly giving Germany its answer to Michelle Obama and French first lady Carla Bruni.
Bettina Wulff, wife of German President Christian Wulff attends a new year reception at the presidential Bellevue palace in Berlin January 13, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz/Files
But eventually, rumors about her past began to emerge online just as her husband was becoming embroiled in a financial favors scandal that forced him out of the largely ceremonial post in February.
Photographs of “Lady Viktoria”, a blonde donning a black blindfold, were avidly compared with pictures of Wulff on the Internet. No allegations were reported in mainstream media, but Wulff became the subject of jokes. The rumors have spread both online and in various media outlets.
Also, it has been reported they were started in order to disrupt her husband Christian Wulff’s political career. In the new book, due out this week, the mother-of-two says the allegations have hurt her deeply.
“I have never worked as an escort,” she writes.
In this case, it is worth noting that a Google search for her name does yield two autocomplete results consistent with the rumors. “Bettina Wulff escort” and “Bettina Wulff prostituierte” show up in multiple languages.
Here is what appears when the name “Bettina Wulff” is typed into Google’s German search site, suggested search terms include the words “prostitute” and “red light district”.
And the same auto-complete results appear when searching on Google’s English site:
In fact, Wulff rebuffs the allegations saying she has never worked as a prostitute. Besides, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Mrs Wulff had offered a sworn declaration denying all allegations relating to prostitution or escort work before her marriage.
Wulff expressed her fear that her son could see this: “If he puts my name in and those are the first expressions he sees … then I find that so horrid and shameful. I can not put the feeling into words.”
But Google has said that it does not select these words itself.
“Google’s automatically produced search suggestions reflect the actual searches users are carrying out. Suggested expressions are generated by algorithms from many objective factors, including the popularity of the search term,” Kay Oberbeck, a spokesman for Google, said in a statement.
In fact, Wulff’s lawyer said a number of publishing outlets had agreed to pay her damages for reporting the allegation, but did not reveal their names or say how much they had paid.
The German Journalists’ Association (DJV) questioned the timing of the legal action.
“The fact that this is happening at the same time as her book is ought to go on sale arouses suspicions of a PR campaign designed to get attention,” said Michael Konken, the head of the association.
As a matter of fact, this certainly is not the first time that Google has found itself embroiled for its autocomplete results. In June, Google settled out of court with French anti-discrimination groups over the charge that Google autocomplete was labeling certain celebrities as “Jewish.” Even if you or I do not feel like being labeled “Jewish” is discriminatory, some groups do and they accused the search giant of “creating probably to greatest Jewish history file ever.”
Nevertheless, Google is not suggesting that Wulff is a prostitute, or the French President is Jewish. But Google searchers are. Google’s autocomplete is based on algorithms that factor in popularity of certain searches:
“As you type, Google’s algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities and the contents of web pages indexed by Google. If you are signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you might also see search queries from relevant searches that you’ve done in the past.
Predicted queries are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely algorithmic factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. The autocomplete data is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries, they say on their support page.
Earlier this year Google was ordered to disable the autocomplete function relating to search results for an unnamed man in Japan, who said his name was being associated with crimes he had not committed.