“Wins”. A 12-year battle is a pyrrhic victory at best.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A line has been finally been drawn under an Adelaide woman’s 12-year legal battle against global tech giant Google after she sued the company twice, mostly unrepresented, and won.
Dr Janice Duffy successfully argued in 2015 and 2023 that Google published defamatory extracts from American website RipOff Report on its search engine page, despite her notifying the company and asking for the posts to be removed.
“I found it very difficult to leave the house, I used to lay on the couch and watch documentaries about serial killers to make me feel normal,” she said.
Google used the defence of innocent dissemination, but even after her David and Goliath-like feat, similar defamatory information continued to appear on the site after her first case.
Independent expert in technology and law, Joel Lisk from Flinders University, said there may not be a large amount of similar proceedings in Australia — given the expense, time and emotional toll it would take on potential plaintiffs.
“Following this proceeding, Google will likely look at the judgement and take steps and look at how it manages and produces data – but there’s only so many things you can do without significant technological innovation.”
The original article contains 576 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
And of course hacker news’s peanut gallery is simping for the company that profits from ignoring character assassination.
What I don’t understand is why Google didn’t comply after the first trial, they have the ability to remove search results to comply with Right to be Forgotten laws in Europe.
