Google is now responsible for the lies of users

From today, Google can be considered responsible for false information from other persons. At least in Australia.

This is exactly what the Supreme Court of Victoria decided - he fined Google $ 200,000 for not having removed the search engine from the issue of defamatory information about the connection between the music promoter (Milorad Trkulja) and organized crime. The court ruled that Google in this case is the publisher of this information, because it displays this content with reference to the site that contains defamation.
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Official position of the company:

Google search results are a reflection of information that is on the web. Sites that Google gives out when searching are controlled by the owners of these sites, and not by the search engine itself.

I even somehow feel sorry for the guys that they had to chew the judge such obvious things.

As for the ill-fated promoter. In 2009, he demanded that the search engine remove all rumors about him, including images, from the list. Google politely sent it to the site owners.

The court ruled that Google can be considered innocent of displaying such information, but only until such time as someone officially requests the company to remove this information from the issue.

During the proceedings, lawyers of the company have repeatedly pointed out that data is collected automatically, that there is no evil guy who sits and manually seeks out gossip for search results, that this is a robot that impassively collect links - anyway.

No matter how stupid the decision may seem to us, a precedent has been created.

In fact, Google was made responsible for all the trolls on the Internet.
I can only imagine what it means for a search engine.

via