Google Sued Over Defamatory Content On The Web
The British owner of domain registrar “dotworlds” is suing Google for directing web searches to sites defaming him and his company.
Google, the world’s biggest search engine, is being sued by a London businessman in a landmark legal action that could hold the US-based company liable for the publication of inaccurate, malicious or damaging material on the internet.
The case, brought by Brian Retkin, 48, from Wembley who has instructed a City law firm to begin defamation proceedings after the search engine directed users to web pages that the businessman claims contained “deeply offensive and commercially damaging” material about his enterprises.
A Google search of “dotworlds scam” brings up a number of forum posts that accuse Brian Retkin and his company dotworlds of fraud, and of cashing in on the 9/11 tragedy.
The case, the first of its kind in this country that seeks to make search engines responsible for the content of the internet – could trigger severe restrictions on the free flow of information on the web.
Internet experts warned that if the action was successful it would mean Google could be held liable for the content of 11.5 billion web pages.
In one anonymous posting on an internet discussion forum, Brian Retkin, Managing Director of the internet company dotworlds, is wrongly accused of cashing in on the 11 September attacks on America by offering the free registration of domain names to the US in a way that took advantage of the fervent patriotism at the time. In other anonymous postings, he is wrongly and groundlessly accused of conducting fraudulent business.
The allegations are believed to have originated in America, where it is much more difficult to succeed in a libel claim.
“There comes a point when someone must take responsibility for this material. These allegations were posted anonymously so there is no way of suing the author,” said Retkin.
Where it has appeared on internet discussion forums we have asked them to remove it but it keeps popping up again at other internet addresses. The only solution is for Google to remove it and give an undertaking they will remove it permanently.
The material in question wrongly accuses Retkin of being fraudulent.
In the US search engines and other third party information services are protected from defamation actions, but in the UK, where Retkin suing Google, the situation is different.
In the UK search engines and other information services can theoretically be sued for defamation, but cannot be sued if they were not aware of the defamatory material. However, once a search engine becomes aware of defamatory material, it’s then obliged to block access to it.
In legal correspondence between Mr. Retkin and Google, a California-based company with sales and marketing offices in London, claims it has “blacklisted” the offending links and removed the material complained of by Mr. Retkin, but it then reappears on other web addresses, claims Retkin.
It also rejects the idea that it should be responsible for the contents of links produced in an internet search.
Mr. Retkin, whose internet company is a domain name registrar (a company that allows customers to register domain names on the internet), says he has spent three years trying to persuade Google to permanently remove the libelous allegations from its search results.
In a letter sent to Google, Franklin Price, a litigation partner at the law firm Jeffery Green Russell, has given formal notice of the defamation action under the court’s pro-action protocol.
In an email written by Google’s legal counsel Harjinder Obhi, the company argues: “Google is not responsible for the content of any result of a query which may be presented to a user of Google’s web search service. Google has absolutely no connection, control or ability to direct or influence the content of web pages which may be shown as links within any given set of search results.”
Internet publishers rightly fear the libel laws in this country, which are much stricter than those of other jurisdictions. They know the onus is on them to prove the truth of any statement found on their websites.
If Retkin is successful in suing Google, it may set a legal precedent that could mean that in the UK, at least, Google is held responsible for all of the pages it has indexed — all 11.5 billion of them.
A successful defamation ruling against a search engine such as Google would have dramatic consequences for thousands of similar organizations or internet product providers which refine, channel and forward information.