back to article Google slapped with libel claim

Google links to more than 11.5bn web pages - and it's responsible for the content posted to every single one them. At least, Brian Retkin thinks so. The 48-year-old Londoner has filed a defamation action against the American search giant, claiming that Google refuses to remove links to sites that libel his company, dotWORLDS. …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about the other search engines

    Well think about it?

    Going after the biggest fish in the pond doesnt necessarily mean that the problem will go away.

    Other search engines would have probably already trawled the area and grabbed it available for search....

    Ergo the problem hasnt gone.

    Just 50% of it ;)

  2. Hate2Register

    Publish and be damned!..

    Google is no more guilty of the libel than me. If I report a libel as being true, then I can be found libellous. But linking to a libel without attesting to it's truth or fabrication is merely prooving it's existence. If the plaintiff was a bit more hardworking, he'd go after the real libellors.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Need for more thought and less timewasting ligitigation

    Here's another case where, if the meaning of the law really is as unclear as the parties are claiming, the law needs to be CHANGED instead of parties wasting time and money arguing whether its unclear or not. And if its really not clear whether its clear or not, then by definition it is NOT clear.

    The search engine only helps to FIND the information and the person to sue for libel is the person who owns the site that actually publishes the information. If search engines aren't already protected from this sort of frivolous litigation, then its high time they were -- so that the search engines can continue doing the job that everybody wants them to do, and the litigants can continue to litigate but only against the person that put the libellous material up in the first place.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's no such thing as bad publicity!

    What is this man's big deal?

    If I was in his position I would ignore this information. Who is actually carrying out a search for this information or even taking notice of this in searches.

    Has Shakespeare used in one of his plays THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH.

    Surely this is a case of just that - Why would anyone be concerned about what a search engine pulls up about their company? If you do a search for any company you are likely to find negative comments about their products or services?

    The only thing that this person is doing is making an increased audience aware of these claims and publicing his company. THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY and all this is doing is making search his company on google etc.

    If I was at all concerned about it I would either ignore it and pretend it is not there or go after the author of the allegations.

  5. Morely Dotes

    Well, here's the *opinion* of a US reader

    IT is my opinion (which is "protected speech" under US Federal law) that Brian Retkin is a gormless git who is being manipulated by his legal representation.

    Of course, it's also possible that his legal representation are the gormless gits, and that Brian Retkin is manipulating them.

    But my opinion is that Retkin is the idiot.

  6. wobbly1

    At the risk of creating...

    an infinite regression, isn't Brian Retkin as Guilty as Goggle for commenting on it? if he hadn't bought the action against Google, in essence , he is presenting google's action who are '...presenting these third-party sites to the world. The sites they're linking to are completely obscure. You wouldn't find them if Google didn't link to them.". If Retkin sues himself, will he disappear in a puff of judicial smoke?

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Shocking

    I am aghast at finding out that, in the UK, linking to a particular content that is not written by you can get you sued by some nitwit who considers himself insulted by said content.

    I am nonetheless happy that said nitwit is filing a suit, because there is rather ample history proving that UK judges do have their wigs on straight, and given that, they will certainly posit a conclusion on the same basis as common sense would want it : the nitwit should sue the libellers, not the linkers.

    Thanks to this ridiculous lawsuit, the nitwit will undoubtedly score an own goal by having paid to change the law and make it clear that linkers are not responsible for the content they link to.

    Google has removed links to its own forums on request, as per normal procedure in any democratic country, and has thus proved its goodwill in the matter. To go any further is bone-headedness and I certainly hope the outcome will be as I have outlined.

    I know nothing of his business or the validity of any of the complaints about him, but to do this is certainly not painting his moral fiber in a favorable color. To me, this Retkin is barking up the wrong tree, and while he's doing that he's not dealing with whatever issue prompted the complaints in the first place. So he's just a nut that has no business running a business.

    He should go work for Sony.

  8. Luke Wells

    Madness!

    It's clear that google are in the wrong here.

    When this guy complained that there were some websites out there that he didn't like, google should have employed at least 20 full time staff to check EVERY website in its database and check EVERY website that is submitted to google for the rest of time, to make sure that none of those sites might offend this guy ever again.

    Urrgh, and its someone in the UK as well........ thats it..... do us proud :(

  9. Andy

    suck / wigs / fingers crossed

    UK libel law sucks. Unfortunately the judges *don't* always have their "wigs on straight" so I have my fingers crossed on this one...

  10. M

    Hang on.... whats his biz again??

    So Mr Retkin sells domain names??

    Surely by his own (twisted) logic, that would been if I bought a domain name through him... say www.brian-retkin-is-a-nut.com and published offensive ramberlings about him..... he would himself be responsible, afterall if he did not provide the domain name, you would never find it by IP address!!

    This is the most stupid thing I have read since Rufus >80)

    --

    Martin

  11. Daniel Silver badge

    Own goal

    If Mr. Retkin is correct in his assumption that the libellous sites are too obscure to be found on their own, he's just singlehandedly brought them into the limelight and thereby worsened the alleged libel problem.

    By threatening to bring this suit (unlike some other posters IANAL so I won't pre-empt the judge by stating whether or not he will win), he's given a whole virtual world reason to read said libellous content. I for one will be searching Google to see what all the fuss is about.

    Oh and for what it's worth, I tend to agree with the poster who wrote "The lady doth protest too much".

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    DotWorlds?

    an Eastenders theme park?

    I think Mr. Retkin should consider reverting the company name back to Quietmode Limited

  13. Gilbert Wham

    And in other news...

    Man sues Highways Agency for supplying roads, some of which lead to places he doesn't like...

  14. Simon Gray

    Haven't we been here before?

    I vaguely remember a UK professor suing (and winning) a case against Demon Internet propagating *allegedly* libellous statements made over USEnet. Would that set a precedent for a Google case? Or should general ignorance of how the internet actually functions result in being laughed out of court?

  15. Joe Blogs

    Newsagents

    "Google purports not to be a publisher, but there's a very fine line there," he says. "Google is presenting these third-party sites to the world. The sites they're linking to are completely obscure. You wouldn't find them if Google didn't link to them."

    Hmmm... if a newspaper reported something he thought was libelous, would he go round sueing all the newsagents and supermarkets for bringing this information to the attention of the public? After all, if not for them the pupblic would not see the newspaper.....

  16. Jonathan Richards

    Emphatically not just Google

    Using a search aggregator (I used eu.ixquick.com) shows that dotWORLDS' history is linked to by many more engines than just Google. Alta Vista, MSN, AOL, EntireWeb, Gigablast... the list goes on. I suggest that Mr Retkin is micturating against the wind.

  17. Rob

    It's started....

    .... the stupid virus has spread across the pond, sod terrorism, I'm more worried about becoming dumb, US style, need a vaccine soon. If I catch this virus I'm suing The Reg for displaying this story in the first place (damn, seems like I might have caught it already) :(

  18. Chris Fryer

    It's worked

    http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dotWORLDS

    "In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org."

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think you can!

    Actually, the way I understood UK law was that this is exactly what you *can* do!

    >Hmmm... if a newspaper reported something he thought was libelous, would he go >round sueing all the newsagents and supermarkets for bringing this information to >the attention of the public? After all, if not for them the pupblic would not see the >newspaper.....

  20. dotWORLDS

    We understand

    We understand that there are many in the US who are rightly concerned about this case. However, what is happening to us is also happening to others and be under no illusion, it could also happen to you.

    Google and other search engines spider links and articles on the Web all day every day and can, in the USA, disseminate the information contained whatever the content, without any liability to themselves (due 1st amendment/freedom of speech laws).

    So what does this mean? This means that tomorrow morning someone with a grudge against you (maybe someone you looked at in a funny way 20 years ago) could tell the world that you are a fraudster, a criminal and a murderer (and that's just for starters). Within days if not hours, articles containing this "factual information" would start to appear on Search Engines, under your name, probably near the top of the list, lingering on websites like Google for perhaps the next 30 years. Anyone, be it friends, family, potential employers would have instant access to this information simply by "Googling" you. Your life is about to change forever. You have no idea how much.

    Ah, but couldn't you complain to Google - after all, you are totally innocent of all charges - except maybe for the crime of coming into contact with a complete loony. Absolutely, but Google would do nothing. You would need a court order. Google is not responsible for the content on it's website and Google is protected by law. No, just go away and search all cyberspace. Take it up with the anonymous author who doesn’t exist.

    If, as has been pointed out here, the information on Google’s Search Engine is not always 100% accurate, then perhaps Google should make this clear. Google is a phenomenal product and it is understandable that many have absolute faith in it. However, at the very least there is imbalance and this imbalance is clearly reflected in dotWORLDS case, where despite the fact that Google has published numerous withdrawal notices on Google.UK, not a word of this is mentioned in Google.COM. Why not? If there is a question on authenticity, why aren’t users in the USA told. You may not care one way or the other, but this is not a level playing field of information and as a direct result Google are putting their USA users in jeopardy.

    Repeat publicly any libel that you (or anyone else) find on Google - even if you believe to be 100% accurate - and it is only you that is at risk. If prosecution follows, it will be you that is dragged off to court and if convicted, it would be your big problem and yours alone. Unfortunately, “I found it on Google” is no defense and you can be sure that Google will not be there to help you out. Of course, Google are protected and face no liability whatsoever as in the USA as they aren’t accountable. This would not be the case in the UK and elsewhere.

    So, what do Google do in their own back yard. Well, take the case of Cnet. A reporter a CNet wanted to see how much information could be gathered on the net within a short period of time. After locating some personal information about Dr Schmidt, Google’s Chairman (amongst other things) the data was published. Google, incensed at this invasion of privacy, immediately banned its staff from talking to CNet reporters for one year. Embarrassingly, it transpired that not only was the information already in the public domain, but the same information about Dr Schmidt was also available on Google's own websites.

    "Google's reaction to CNet is totally inconsistent with its handling of a man who had been falsely accused as a pedophile by his wife during divorce hearings, The man's name and photograph were posted on a police website but were removed after the charges were dropped. However, having picked up the story, Google did not remove the pictures or postings it had published on its search engine. According to Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum (WPF), the page remained accessible through Google and was only removed after a long struggle.

    There are 11.5 billion pages on Google. But really, how much of it is truly meaningful. Has this become a race for quantity over quality. Search "Google" on Google and you will find 1 billion entries. Great company - yes it is - but are there really a billion things to say about them. Spend 10 seconds on each page to find out and you will be at your computer for around the next 317 years (give or take a few days). Some of us have to go out later tonight, so that's really is not an option.

    Yes, freedom of speech must be preserved and protected, but there is a fine line that is often blurred. We have built up an organization with members and users in over 90 countries around the world and we feel absolutely justified in trying to protect ourselves. As far as we are concerned, Google have been playing games with us for years - responding, ignoring, apologising, removing and re-inserting to their own agenda and in no particular order. This matter could have been settled long ago, amicably and without publicity. On our side at least, we have a mountain of letters and paperwork to prove that.

    dotWORLDS

    www.dotworlds.net

  21. Lyndon Hills

    re: newsagents

    Actually that is exactly what happens in this country (the UK). Some friends of mine used to run a satirical magazine, a bit like Private Eye. They had no money and were barely worth suing, but were effectively put out business by having their distributors pull the mag off the shelves for fear of being sued. This is also partly why WH Smiths (a major UK newsagent) refused to stock Private Eye for many years.

    The logic is that the newsagent can be held liable as they are assisting in publicising the libel, as your comment states.

  22. Jay Zelos

    UK Law

    We have the law of precedent here in the UK, its the judges job to interpret the written law the first time this issue comes to court. Once the decision is made then it will be used by lawyers to determine if its worth going to court for future cases. If the judge gets it wrong in the eyes of parliament (once the usual appears have been exhausted) then MP's can redraft it to provide clarification.

    It's a system that's worked well for over 300 years so lets not knock it yet.

    (Having said that, I bet this one is an easy win for Google)

    J

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Excellent, Gilbert

    "Man sues Highways Agency for supplying roads, some of which lead to places he doesn't like..."

    Made me laugh.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Problem solved

    Now that the whole internet is discussing the libel case I would think it's now impossible to find on Google, or anywhere else, the original libelous posts. Job done

  25. Chris Lightner

    Is dotWorld serious?

    If there is libel, you sue the publisher of the site. The site is then removed and links from Google or any other search engine diplay a "page not found" message. DotWorld's reaction is like suing the Grocery store because they sold the newspaper that contains libel.

  26. Rebecca Corder

    Censorship

    "That's exactly what Brian Retkin plans to do. "Our position is going to be that, if Google can't filter all the content that's reaching UK users, they're going to have to remove the libel in the States as well."®"

    So that means that they are going to try and censor in the US? Doesn't that mean that they would be violating our First Amendment rights? Yeah, I see this happening... When pigs fly.

  27. Dillon Pyron

    Just tried

    Couldn't find much that might be considered "libelous". Plenty of claims from dotworlds. And plenty of places where he has left comments on a site in the form of his press release. Let's just say that I've replied in kind. I won't say what I wrote, since the UK's libel laws might get the Reg in trouble. But I'm sure Retkin would find them libelous.

  28. david wilson

    "Internet not 100% accurate" shocker

    >>"If, as has been pointed out here, the information on Google’s Search Engine is not always 100% accurate, then perhaps Google should make this clear"

    I started thinking "What kind of moron needs it to be made clear that not all the information on the internet is always 100% accurate?".

    Then the answer came to me - the kind of person who thinks 'proprietary URLs' are actually worth having.

  29. Ray Gordon

    Dotworlds has it right

    People who say "sue the original author" never have an answer for what to do if the original author is anonymous, other than "get over it." Easy to do when one isn't the target of defamation. That 95 percent of these people are terrified of identifying themselves shows they know exactly what the dangers are.

    People who don't rock the boat, who conform, who don't speak out against evil or corruption, aren't going to sympathize with those who "piss people off." Problem is that if we encourage people not to rock the boat, problems don't get solved because people are too afraid of retaliation to speak their minds.

    What Google does is take obscure defamation from obscure sources and serves it up to decisionmakers in the lives of individuals. Google is the publisher of these user-requested search results, a separate document from each of the original documents it points to. It is that search-results document that causes 99 percent of the damage, not the original posting on some board read by 20 people.

    Even in the us, the supposed "section 230 immunity" has never been tested by our Supreme Court, and the history of libel law suggests the immunity won't hold up, since it never has in the offline world for over 150 years. The reason we passed libel laws here was so that we could make DUELING illegal.

    To allow Google to escape responsibility for what it publishes or republishes would be to take away the right of a man to defend his reputation, something he used to be allowed to do by challenging the person calling him names to a duel, and if the other side didn't accept the challenge, he had the right to kill him.

    Just because some of us don't protect our reputations by hidind behind our monitors afraid to speak our minds, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have recourse in the event someone abuses our openness.

  30. david wilson

    What?

    >>"People who don't rock the boat, who conform, who don't speak out against evil or corruption, aren't going to sympathize with those who "piss people off." Problem is that if we encourage people not to rock the boat, problems don't get solved because people are too afraid of retaliation to speak their minds."

    As far as I'm aware, the guy in the current case isn't some nonconformist boat-rocking evil-fighting superhero being beaten into not speaking his mind.

    He's someone with a business who seems to have a person out there with a grudge against his business for some reason or other.

    That can still suck, if the complaints are factually incorrect, but it's maybe not quite the same as heroic free speech being silenced by anonymous establishment-backed critics.

    >>"People who say "sue the original author" never have an answer for what to do if the original author is anonymous, other than "get over it.""

    One could start by trying to get the site hosting the comments to remove them (if you can show they are untrue), so that no search engine could find them, or, if the site is a message board, make a posting explaining what the facts actually are, so people can see your side of the story.

    If a site hosting negative comments *was* actually popular in itself, complaining to the site admins rather than Google would clearly be the first course of action.

    One could also put some mention on one's own site "Someone without the decency to identify themselves is making up stories for one reason or another. The truth is actually...."

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My OPINION of DotWorlds and their related executives.

    My OPINION (this is not a factual statement) is that the executives at DotWorld have provided substandard and shoddy service to customers and that they're now suffering the result of that provision. My opinion is that even if negative news were to appear on Google, that the positive opinions should outweigh the negative and any individual who was bothering to Google for such a worthless service to get reviews of it (which, in my field, I've never seen happen since any domain name with more than two dashes and unnecessary words generally means that you're nothing more than a scheister, idiot, moron, punk, what have you).

    My OPINION is that the executives at DotWorld have realized that this may negatively impact their business (MAY, I doubt that any individual at that company has done any research to prove that any harm has been done) and now have turned to trying to "milk the cow" so to speak, SCO style.

    It is my OPINION that DotWorlds and all related staff and executives could probably burn in the lower levels of Hell because they're nothing more than scum of the Earth which won't be missed.

    But then again, that's just my OPINION, isn't it?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dotworlds

    I'm in full agreement with the analogy that Dotworlds is suing a highway for providing roads to cities he does not like.

    The following is factually correct: Mr. Retkin is an idiot.

    The following is probably correct, due to the idiocy of UK libel laws: He's going to be a very rich idiot unless Google buys an awesome attorney or pays off the right judge (who cares, its the UK, right? Just don't buy US judges, in my view. I'll reverse this opinion if Google beats Retkin in a fair fight)

    In the US, a woman sues a furniture store because she trips over her own child and hits her head against a table. Millions of dollars awarded to her. The furniture store is toast, the owners' lives are ruined. Spoiled, spoiled woman.

    This guy is just such a case. He could cause a huge amount of havoc to Google in the UK. He might not get a dime, but if they have to make changes and filter sites that so much as link to libel against him, it's going to cost them man hours and ad money. Being well acquainted with a Google employee, and being a programmer, I know that there are no magical solutions to change Google's crawler automation that won't bring considerable harm to Dotworlds, and eCommerce in general, especially in light of this shower of attention. For the only reasonable automatic way to cleanse Google of Dotworlds libel is to cleanse Google of Dotworlds, period. Which means that no traffic will be headed to Dotworlds from Google. Furthermore every single news outlet that has made mention of Dotworlds, past or present, could lose some traffic as well. All in all, potential millions of dollars lost.

    Lame. This is Legal Terrorism.

    Fact: Dotworlds is a terrorist organization.

    -Anonymous

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