Joris van Hoboken

A Dutch judge has concluded (in a preliminary judgment) that a website is liable for a wrong suggestion in the snippet text of ‘its’ Google search result. The judge has ordered the webmaster to change its website in a way that will stop the wrong suggestion from showing up in Google. Note that the text on the website itself was not unlawful. The problem was that a search for [zwartepoorte failliet] (= CompanyName bankrupt] resulted in the following snippet text:

Volledige naam: Zwartepoorte Specialiteit: BMW … Dit bedrijf is failliet verklaard, het is overgenomen door het motorhuis Ik heb bij Boot Rialto gewerkt …

My translation:

Complete name: Zwartepoorte Specialiteit: BMW … This company has been declared bankrupt, it has been acquired by the motordealer I have worked for Boat Rialto …

One way to do as the judge ordered is to take down the complete page with information about the company Zwartepoorte. That is what seems to have happened now. Another solution would be to use code language such as is common with the word pr0n.

Clearly the combination of words and the quote in question will show up all over the Web so I don’t see any benefits for the company in question to have won this case. And of course, the judgment (the reasoning of the Court will be published on 27 May 2009) does not make any sense, from a tort law or from a technology perspective. A reason could be that the defendant appeared in person.

I am fascinated by the idea that the existence of search engines, and Google in particular, gives websites some kind of qualified responsibility with regard to the content on their website. I see more and more examples of this, for instance the idea that personal data should be prevented from being indexed through the use of robots.txt instructions.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under censorship, freedom of expression, liability, search engines.