Bleyer v. Google Inc. [2014] NSWSC 897

Bleyer brought a claim in defamation against Google on the basis of its organic search results. The New South Wales Supreme Court dismissed the claim on summary judgment on the basis that Google is not a publisher of its search results, at least prior to notification of a complaint. Google’s production of the search results involves no human input, apart from the creation of its search algorithm. The Court rejected the conclusion reached in Trkulja (below) and explicitly adopted the UK position on this point (Metropolitan International Schools Ltd v Designtechnica Corporation 2009 EWHC 1765; Tamiz v Google Inc 2012 EWHC 449).