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Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

abc.net.au

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Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#51

Post by travoc »

Lacerda69 wrote: post #7
HPsquared wrote: post #5

Seems to be about Google making something from "Ripoff Report" available, on which were defamatory statements about the plaintiff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripoff_Report An interesting business model, to be sure... And a clash of two legal regimes, one in which Ripoff Report can operate and another in which Google can be sued for indexing / linking to them. It's like, pick your poison...

i find it mindboggling that criminal records are so accessible in the US - so that something like ripoff report is a legal business there does not surprise me in the least

You think secret courts and prisons are better than public criminal records?

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#52

Post by pmontra »

ballballball wrote: post #42
MichaelZuo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would also imply that there is no right for individuals to have a productive life with plenty of free time per day. Since burdensome, long-lasting, legally required procedures can also be imposed by a court on an individual. Seems like a slippery slope to be honest.

Ahhh... The old "corporations are people" equivocation.

We had a post about that a few months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36732729

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#53

Post by glimshe »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #50
glimshe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrespective of this specific ruling, the laws don't need to make Google's business scale or even be viable. Google should only exist if its business can comply with the rules we created for our society.

But if Google adds a lot of value to our society should we not consider amending our laws to make the business viable?

How would that work? Business becomes big by breaking the laws then we change the laws so business stays big?

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#54

Post by unsupp0rted »

adriand wrote: post #19
testplzignore wrote: post #3

https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/duffy-v... has some actual details of what this is about.

This is an interesting detail - Google's autocomplete suggestions for the plaintiff's name were found to be defamatory: > Dr. Duffy became aware that when people searched her name on Google’s search engine, the Google search bar provided an autocomplete suggested search term of “janice duffy psychic stalker”. [...] Google was also found [by the court] to be the “publisher” of autocomplete suggestions that came up whe…

It's not so much "be careful with your UI" as "when you're actually notified that your UI is treading on somebody, you better stop (treading on that particular person)".

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#55

Post by petee »

donatj wrote: post #14

Going after Google rather than the company actually making the remarks seems… incorrect Doesn’t seem like it should be Googles job to fact check the internet. Go after the liar, not the search engine. Google seems no more responsible than your ISP for sending it to you or your monitor manufacturer for displaying it.

Perhaps if it was someone else's title, but they are constructing their own auto-complete strings, essentially divining it, so their fingers are in fact in the pie.

Auto-complete also gives the impression that other people have searched or found it, so it must be valid, despite having little correlation. If an employer starts typing your name and google says you're pedo, you're probably not getting the job

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#56

Post by xyst »

csunbird wrote: post #23
testplzignore wrote: post #3

https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/duffy-v... has some actual details of what this is about.

> 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 su…

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.

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#57

Post by kkielhofner »

As other commenters have noted this is a classic pyrrhic victory.

If nothing else I have to respect her because I cannot imagine the tenacity it took to pursue this. I can't speak to the merits or substance of the case but I know I don't have it.

It's clear from the article she's a fighter with her initial reaction to discovering this:

"She contemplated taking her life, saying it destroyed her career in research."

To pull yourself together and come back from that is fairly remarkable.

On the other hand, you have to really feel sorry for her. She took what seems to be a slight and spent 12 years of her life putting the time and effort into this while incurring the stress, emotional toll, expense, and what I'm sure are plenty of other sacrifices elsewhere in her life.

She seems to be happier as a result of these "victories" but I wonder how much better things could have been for her if she spent the last 12 years focusing her energies elsewhere in her life and career.

Re: Woman wins 12-year legal battle against Google

#58

Post by arp242 »

csunbird wrote: post #23
testplzignore wrote: post #3

https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/duffy-v... has some actual details of what this is about.

> 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 su…

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.

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