Brazilian TV Host Gets Court To Demand Google Censor Results Pointing To A Movie She Was Once In

from the right-to-forget? dept

While we were encouraged by a proposal in Brazil that would make it much more difficult to get content taken down without a trial or giving whoever put the content up a chance to respond (and also by a proposal to make fair use equally as important as copyright), to date, Brazilian courts have a tragically bad history of enforcing censorship based on content someone doesn't like. Google, for example, has been on the losing end of lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit in Brazil -- and all of it over third party content.

The latest such example comes from reader Fabop, who notes that Xuxa Meneghel, a well-known host of a Brazilian children's TV show has been able to get the courts to issue an injunction against Google (Google translation of the original Portuguese) because she was upset at the results that came up when people did a search for "Xuxa pedophile."

If you're wondering why people would do such a search -- or why there were Google results on it, apparently, back in 1982, Xuxa Meneghel started in a film, Amor, Estranho Amor (Love, Strange Love) in which she played a pedophile prostitute who seduces an 11-year-old boy. Of course, that's factual information -- but she's upset that when people search on those terms, it returns articles about the movie, and pictures from the movie. This seems somewhat similar to the various attempts to create "right to forget" laws in Europe. Apparently, Meneghel has even been successful in getting the actual movie banned from distribution, even though the company who owns the film rights would like to continue distributing it.

Google is apparently a bit upset that this temporary injunction was issued without anyone bothering to inform Google (Google translation from the original Portuguese, and it sounds like the company will try to fight the injunction.

The company points out -- accurately -- that it's merely indexing the content that's out there, and is not responsible for it. However, Xuxa's lawyer mocks them for this claim, saying that Google can and should block such content, and that the court system in Brazil is "tired" of deciding whether or not search engines are responsible for the content to which they link.

Filed Under: brazil, links, search engines, takedowns, xuxa meneghel
Companies: google