In what could be a landmark legal proceeding, a 48 year old businessman in London is suing Google for what he believes was the company aiding in libel by allowing “defamatory” search results to appear in its listings.

The Claim

He claims that Google is responsible for the content of a website (appearing in its listings) that accuses Brian Retkin, managing director of the company dotworlds, of cashing in on patriotic post September 11th sentiment by offering free registration of domains to U.S. customers. Registrations that took advantage of the heightened patriotic fervor on U.S. soil. In other sites, he is also accused of a wide range of fraudulent business practices.

Google has blacklisted many of the sites that contain this information, and have taken steps to remove it from its listings. It claims, however, that it is not responsible for the content of its web results.

The Fallout

Should Mr. Retkin’s case be successful, it would be an important legal precedent. In the future, it would be much easier for individuals and organizations to bring claim against Google for the content of its search results. This could cripple Google’s ability to do business, and cost the company tens of millions of dollars in litigation.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Google is not the only company that could be affected by this, any institution that makes it its business to aggregate third party content could end up on the chopping block. From Google all the way down to bloggers who provide external links. A bit of a slippery slope, yes, but not completely without justification.

As quoted in The Independent Retkin states that, “[there comes a point] when someone must take responsibility for this material. These allegations were posted anonymously so there is no way of suing the author. Where it has appeared on internet discussion forums we have asked them to remove it but it keeps popping up again at other internet addresses. The only solution is for Google to remove it and give an undertaking they will remove it permanently.”

There comes a point when we must all take responsibility for our own reputations, especially in this new digital landscape. Suing Google might allow you to get compensated for your claims, but who will be next? Yahoo? MSN? Search engines never make any claims to the data that they index, in fact, in order for them to provide the strongest results, this objectivity is critical. If you are that interested in getting the information removed, spend the time to go after those who actually posted it.

What will actually come of this case, we’ll have to wait and see. I would suggest, however, that Mr. Retkins “google” the Defamation Act of 1996.

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