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We had reported in a previous post about the decision of the Court of Milan against Google for defamation arising from the usage of Google “suggest search” service. Interestingly, one year later the court of Pinerolo took a complete opposite view.
The case relates to an entrepreneur who found out that when his name was typed on Google search bar, the system was suggesting terms like “arrested” and “investigated” even if there is no information on the Internet about his involvement in a criminal proceeding. The claimant requested Google to remove the association between his name and such terms since this was defamatory, but Google responded that the removal of the association could not occur as the suggest search service works automatically on the basis of the frequent searches performed by users.
Google’s view was shared by the Court of Pinerolo according to which the suggest search service shows “no more than that a certain number of users has recently questioned the search engine in order to know whether X was (or had been) investigated or arrested“. Therefore this is an automatic system rather than a system controlled by people.
Furthermore the court held that the crime of defamation could not be triggered as:
1) there was no defamatory statement as the search is closer to a question rather than a statement;
2) there was no wilful action by Google or other users aimed at performing a defamatory action; and
3) the Google suggest search service was not providing any defamatory information as it was merely disclosing that some people searched for those terms.
Finally, according to the Court, Google is a mere hosting provider for the purposes of the E-Commerce Directive and therefore it cannot be held liable for the contents published by its users as far as it merely provides a technical feature without taking any active role in suggesting the terms to be associated to the words typed by users.
This decision is very interesting and follows the Decision of the Italian Communications Authority of not adopting a new notice and take down procedure and therefore it shows a new approach in the Italian case law with reference to the liability of Internet Service Providers.
Do you want to discuss the implications of such decision? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.
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