High Court of Australia, Google Inc. v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (2013) 249 CLR 435; [2013] HCA 1, February 6, 2013

The High Court of Australia held that Google did not engage in misleading or deceptive conduct under s 18 of the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2, Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) by displaying or publishing misleading AdWords in organic search results. Google was not the author of the sponsored links; the advertisers were the authors, as they determined every relevant aspect of the sponsored links. Google's automated response (of displaying the sponsored link) to a user's search request merely assembled the information to be displayed as an advertisement. In doing so, Google neither adopted nor endorsed the misleading representations made by the advertisers, and was merely passing on the sponsored links 'for what they were worth'. Google was not relevantly different to physical intermediaries who publish, display or broadcast others' advertisements. The Court held that it was clear that ordinary and reasonable users of Google's search engine would have understood that the sponsored links, and the representations of those links, were created by the advertisers, and not adopted or endorsed by Google.