Payam Tamiz v Google Inc [2013] EWCA Civ 68

The claimant in those proceedings complained about the defamatory comments posted on a blog hosted on Blogger.com, a website operated by Google. It was held that once Google is notified of the defamatory comments on Blogger and fails to remove them within a reasonable time, it might incur liability as the “secondary” publisher of said content. Regarding the defence set out in s. 1 of the Defamation Act 1996 (see above), it was held that Google could not be regarded as the publisher of the comments within the meaning of s. 1(2), and while the company was found to have taken reasonable care with regards to the publication of the statement, it could be denied the defence due to the finding that it knew or should have known that its activity is likely to prolong the publication of the defamatory material. However, the s. 1 defence was not applied in the end, since the Court of Appeal agreed with the court of the first instance that the damage caused by the defamatory comments at hand was of trivial character, and could not result in the finding of a real and substantial tort. Hence, the case was struck out.