Google is trying to dodge an Australian court ruling by saying that it will be terrible for the internet as a whole. The search engine giant has asked the court to overturn a 2020 ruling since it will force Google to “censor the internet”.
It all started in 2016 when George Defteros, a Victoria state lawyer requested Google to remove an article from its search engine results. The article included a report on murder charges filed against Defteros related to the death of three men. The incident was related to Melbourne’s notorious gangland killings.
The matter eventually made it to court when Defteros successfully proved the article and Google’s search results had defamed him. The Victorian Court of Appeals had denied Google’s request to overturn the ruling.
The High Court of Australia had awarded a lawyer $40,000 in defamation damages for the article Google had refused to remove from its search engine as it viewed the publication as a reputable source.
According to Google, the issue at hand has to do with one of the fundamental building blocks of the internet – hyperlinks. The company’s main argument was that “A hyperlink is not, in and of itself, the communication of that to which it links”.
Google says that if the court ruling is left to stand, it will have to be “liable as the publisher of any matter published on the web to which its search results provide a hyperlink,”. It will force Google to censor news stories that even come from reputable sources.
The post Google Might be Forced to “Censor the Internet” appeared first on .
