Google Loses Another Lawsuit in France over Suggest Feature

Court decisions swing either way for Google. While the company won an interesting copyright case involving YouTube in Spain last week, it lost another case in France over its Google Suggest feature which was deemed slanderous and Google responsible.

Google was sued in the country by a man found guilty of "corruption of a minor." The decision was not yet definitive when the man sued Google.

He complained that the Google would offer suggestions next to his name in the vein of "rapist," "Satan worshiper" and so on. Naturally, he was upset and wanted Google to remove those suggestions.

Google has no editorial power over the suggestions. They are generated entirely by an algorithm and are based on the most popular searches Google gets containing the keywords being typed.

The same technology powers the recently launched Google Instant which serves results as a query is typed based on the most likely search containing those particular words and letters.

Yet the court found not only Google but CEO Eric Schmidt himself liable for the suggestions and ordered them to pay 1 Euro in damages to the man and cover the court costs amounting to 5,000 Euros. Interestingly enough, it wasn't Google France that was found liable, but the main company in the US.

Google has said that it plans to appeal the ruling. The company defended itself saying that it has no direct influence over the suggestions which are entirely created based on what users search for. As such, the company believes that it should not be held responsible for the actions of its users.

This is actually not the first time Google was found guilty in a similar case in France. At the beginning of the year, Google lost a case involving a local company which wanted certain suggestions to be removed and Google to be held accountable for them.