14 DAY TRIAL // In a curious case in the UK Google was found not liable for the snippets of texts that appear in its search results that may be defamatory to others. London, UK-based Metropolitan International Schools (MIS) sued Google's operations in the US and the UK claiming some search results with content from a forum in the US where defamatory with users saying the company's distance learning courses were "nothing more than a scam."
The company has a distance learning course in game development called “Train2Game.” This course came under discussion on a forum on the Digital Trends website, the owners of which were also sued. Users claimed in two threads that several courses from the company were scams and the snippets of texts containing these claims were used by Google in its results. MIS asked Google to remove the results and block the offending URLs and any combination of keywords that may lead to similar results.
However, the search giant said that its local UK operation, Google UK Ltd., had no control over the content of the search engine, which was managed by the company's main US operation, Google Inc. As such, it said that the lawsuit should be filed in California where it was headquartered. The company running the forum was also based in the US.
Justice Eady ruled on the possibility for MIS to sue Google in England and see whether the search engine could be held accountable as a publisher and not just a facilitator. He concluded that indeed Google was just a facilitator and didn't take any active steps in publishing the snippets and couldn't block the snippets from appearing on certain queries unless it would take active measures in that sense.
He believed though that Google could take some steps to block unlawful material from showing up on the site but that it would be done at the request of the offended party. Currently the search giant requires those seeking a takedown to provide it with the offending URL. However, MIS asked the company to actively block certain keywords, like 'scam', from being associated with it. Justice Eady ruled that this was impractical and inappropriate and that the corporation couldn't be expected to keep trying to block certain content when it would be much easier to go to the source, the company operating the forum in this case, and ask it to remove the content, therefore having it removed from Google too.