Sydney (Reuters) – On Wednesday, Australia’s highest court overturned a ruling that said Google was guilty of defamation because it linked to a disputed newspaper article. This put the spotlight back on how the country handles online libel cases.
The seven-judge panel of the High Court of Australia voted 5 to 2 to throw out an earlier decision that the Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc unit helped publish the disputed article by acting as a “library” for it. They said the website had no active role.
Google court case 2022
The decision adds to the confusion about who is responsible for online slander in Australia, which has been going on for years. A review of the country’s libel laws that has been going on for years has not yet made a final decision on whether or not big platforms like Google and Facebook (NASDAQ:META) should be held accountable.
The case started with an article from 2004 that said a criminal defence lawyer had crossed the line between his job and his personal life and become a “confidant” of criminals. The published judgement backed up this claim. The lawyer, George Defteros, found a link to the story when he searched for his name on Google in 2016. After 150 people had seen it, he asked Google to take it down.
A state court found that Google was a publisher and told it to pay Defteros A$40,000 ($28,056). Google filed an appeal, which led to Wednesday’s decision.
Two of the panel judges wrote in Wednesday’s ruling that “the Underworld article was not written by any employee or agent of the appellant,” which is Google.
“It was written by a reporter who had nothing to do with the appellant, and it was published by a newspaper that the appellant had nothing to do with or control over.”
They wrote that Google “does not own or run the internet.”
A Google spokesperson was not available to talk right away.
Defteros said in a statement that the process had been “long, drawn-out, expensive, and very stressful,” but he felt vindicated because the court agreed with him that the article was defamatory, even though Google wasn’t responsible.
The High Court found last year that a newspaper publisher was responsible for defamatory comments that were left under an article that it had posted on Facebook. This decision is based on that decision.
The media companies last year “invited and encouraged comment,” while Google “did not provide a forum or place where it could be communicated, nor did it encourage writing comments in response,” the judges wrote.
(1 dollar equals 1.4257 Australian dollars).
