Argentina Orders Google To Censor Suggested Searches

from the it's-algorithmic... dept

While Google won a similar lawsuit in France, down in Argentina, a court has ordered Google to censor the "suggested search" feature on searches that lead to certain sites that have been deemed offensive. It has also ordered Google to remove those sites from its index. Honestly, if it was going to order Google to remove the sites from the index anyway, I wonder why the suggested search was even an issue. Once they're out of the index, the suggested search issue becomes meaningless.

Either way, this definitely seems to be a growing global trend of placing the liability and blame for content that people don't like on the intermediaries. Even if we can all agree that the content is offensive and ignorant (and, hopefully, we can), is this really the most sensible response? Personally, I've always found that attempts to censor such content only empower those who already believe in it, because they feel like they're revealing such an important "secret," since others feel the need to shut it down. I tend to think that the best way to respond to bad or offensive speech is with more speech, in order to educate the ignorant.

Either way, putting the responsibility on Google seems silly. Google is just indexing the content. It's not responsible for it. When we seek to put censorship ability on the intermediaries, it feels like we're not dealing with the actual issues. Rather than responding to ignorant speech with more speech, it's trying (and almost certainly failing) to sweep the ignorant and offensive speech under the rug. I greatly prefer a world in which we deal with realities (such as the fact that there are ignorant people out there), rather than hiding them and pretending such people don't exist.

Filed Under: argentina, censorship, free speech, google suggest
Companies: google

French Courts Once Again Confused About Google Suggest; Blame Google For Suggested Searches

from the gotta-understand-the-algorithm dept

Not again. Earlier this year, we wrote about a couple of lawsuits in France involving companies that wanted to blame Google for the results that pop up via Google Suggest (the feature that simply looks at what you're typing, and suggests the most popular searches based on what you've typed). Tragically, we noted that the courts wanted to find Google liable for these suggestions, and it looks like yet another French court has made that same mistake. This is, quite clearly, blaming Google for what its users are doing. The algorithm for Google Suggest is just taking the aggregate results of what people are actually searching on, and using that to make suggestions. There's no editorial control by Google, and yet this court not only found Google liable for those suggestions, but ordered the removal of all the "offending" query suggestions. In this case, it involved a guy who had been convicted for "corruption of a minor," who got upset "because the plaintiff's name was returned in response to queries on search terms such as rape, satan worshipper, and other things." At some point, you hope that courts and politicians will understand the basics of how technology works, but it seems like we may be waiting a long, long time.

Filed Under: france, google suggest, liability
Companies: google

French Court Forcing Google To Remove Word 'Scam' From Google Suggest

from the public-interest? dept

Last year we wrote about two contradictory rulings in France involving lawsuits by companies upset about how Google Suggest works. As you probably know, as you type a query into Google, it tries to "suggest" the rest of the query, based on common searches beginning with what you typed. This is all done automatically and is an algorithmic function of what people are actually searching on. The "problem" was that in one case, people were searching for the name of a company, Centre National Prive de Formation a Distance (CNFDI), and one of the most popular searches, meaning one of the suggested searches, was to follow CNFDI with "arnaque," which means "scam." In one case, from a company called Direct Energie, the court ruled that it was Google's fault -- and oddly blamed the fact that the results were not alphabetical to suggest Google was at fault. The better ruling came in the CNFDI case where the court pointed out that search engines are "important tools for the free circulation of ideas and information," and the fact that many people were questioning whether CNFDI was a scam was, in fact, important and potentially useful information, and thus not libelous by itself. It also said that the burden on free speech would be too great if Google were forced to remove the suggestion.

So much for that ruling. Reader Mike Read has sent in the news that an appeals court has reversed the CNFDI ruling and found Google liable. Its reasoning is that Google lets people alert the company to "offensive" terms in Google suggest, and it believes that "scam" is an offensive term. I have to question that logic. If people are legitimately concerned that there are scams going on, why shouldn't that be expressed?

Filed Under: defamation, france, google suggest, scam
Companies: cnfdi, google

Using Google Suggest To See If A Company Is A Scam

from the neat-tricks dept

Jeremy Wagstaff has a neat little trick to determine if a company contacting him is likely to be a "scam" of some sort. He just types the name into the Google search bar in Firefox and lets the "Google Suggest" feature take over. Google Suggest, of course, tries to suggest what you might be searching for based on the most common searches done on what you've already started typing in. For some companies, Wagstaff has noted that many of the top results are the name of the company and "scam" or something equally questionable. It's a neat trick, though, as Wagstaff wonders, how long will it be until those companies hire "media specialists" to come up with ways to scrub the Google Suggest results. In the meantime, I'm curious when Google will end up getting sued for such a suggestion. You can bet that some company will try to twist Google Suggest into saying that Google is responsible for the implication from the suggestions, rather than the collection of Google users and their searches.

Filed Under: google suggest, scams
Companies: google