Google CEO convicted of defamation over 'Google Suggest'

[0ddity]

A Paris court has convicted US search engine giant Google and its chief executive Eric Schmidt of defamation over results from its "suggest" function, a French legal affairs website has revealed.
The new function, which suggests options as you type in a word, brought up the words "rapist" and "satanist" when the plaintiff's name was typed into the search engine, legalis.net reported.

France fails.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100925/tc_af...rnetcourtgoogle

 

[MMX]

France fails.

how is this news? france fails since the beginning of time

 

[prowler]

France fails.

how is this news? france fails since the beginning of time

Do you know the difference between a comment and a news article?

 

[miigo]

have you seen the website 'autocompleteme'?

 

[Depravo]

For more Google/France hilarity enter 'french military victories' then hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button.

 

[Deleted User]

type in 'why do b'

Honestly, this thread's gonna be trashed with 'omg type in this funny lolz' like the last 2 posts.

 

[RupeeClock]

Google didn't commit defamation, the whole internet did and their programs picked up on it.

If a hundred websites reported news on "Guy Johnson commits murder", then autocomplete is going to give you "Guy Johnson murderer"

 

[thedicemaster]

really, laws like these don't go well when mixed with google.

but it could've been worse, they could've held all sites listed by google at that time responsible.(has happened before, they held an unrelated site responsible for what google showed)

 

[Veho]

So much for not shooting the messenger.

 

[Searinox]

A lawsuit over google's search offensive results is as much fail as one over it offerring results for copyrighted content. However, with this in light I honestly do wish google offers an option to disable suggest again. Not only is it hogging their servers, doing the equivalent of maybe 5-10 searches before you actually hit the search button, but people like me dislike it altogether. I have never been a fan of autocompletes, histories and suggestions and hate it even more when they're shoved in my face. And although I don't think it should be convictable, yes, google suggest is bound to annoy some people, for example those who let their kids run a google search and it bringing up offensive words before the full searchtext is entered.

 

[The Pi]

For more Google/France hilarity enter 'french military victories' then hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button.

I'm putting that as my sig

 

[GeekyGuy]

I love the headline for that article: "French court convicts Google and boss of defamation"

It should be "French court convicts Google and boss for defamation"

Instead, it reads as if he's the boss of defamation. It's funny, too, that this is an article coming from Yahoo. They've got the biggest penis envy of any company when it comes to search engines.

 

[thedicemaster]

A lawsuit over google's search offensive results is as much fail as one over it offerring results for copyrighted content. However, with this in light I honestly do wish google offers an option to disable suggest again. Not only is it hogging their servers, doing the equivalent of maybe 5-10 searches before you actually hit the search button, but people like me dislike it altogether. I have never been a fan of autocompletes, histories and suggestions and hate it even more when they're shoved in my face. And although I don't think it should be convictable, yes, google suggest is bound to annoy some people, for example those who let their kids run a google search and it bringing up offensive words before the full searchtext is entered.

i'm fairly certain they have an option to disable this new suggest system.
log into a valid gmail account through the google.com page, and dig a little through settings.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Le Ha Ha

 

[Frogman]

just so everyone knows the 'french military defeats' page is not real its hosted by a website called albino sheep

 

[Midna]

Well yeah, but it's funny.