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Court Decision

Supreme Court of South Australia, Google Inc v Duffy [2017] SASCFC 130 (4 October 2017)

Duffy alleged defamation against Google Inc and Google Australia Pty Ltd for search results that contained links to third-party pages containing defamatory material and extracted snippets that were themselves defamatory. The claim against Google Australia was rejected on the basis that there was no evidence it had the ability to remove the URL links and snippets from the Google Search index. Google Inc. was found liable under defamation law for publishing links to defamatory pages on third party websites, for extracting snippets in its search results, and for defamatory imputations in its autocomplete search function. Liability commenced after Google was put on notice of the defamatory material by the plaintiff in 2009 and did not act to stop publishing the material. Google could not establish that any defences applied...
Court Decision

X v. Twitter

[2017] NSWSC 1300 (28 September 2017)
This case arose because an Internet troll used a series of Twitter accounts to attack and disclose financial information about the unidentified plaintiff, referred to as X. For the most part, Twitter removed the posts upon notification. X sued Twitter in Australia. Twitter, a Delaware corporation with primary locus of operations in California, did not appear to defend the case, presumably in order to avoid waiving jurisdictional defenses. That approach backfired: the court found personal jurisdiction over Twitter, and also concluded that it had the authority to order Twitter to comply with Australian law globally. It also accepted plaintiff's assertion that Twitter could proactively block the offending content going forward. The court states, somewhat confusingly. that Twitter can do so without proactively monitoring...
Court Decision

Google Inc v Trkulja [2016] VSCA 333

In similar facts to the earlier 2012 decision, Mr Trkulja again brought a claim in defamation against Google for defamatory search results. Google Inc. sought to set aside service outside the jurisdiction. The Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal held that Google had established that Mr Trkulja had no real prospect of success at trial. The Court largely accepted that search results would be 'published' by Google, but found that the material complained about was not likely to carry defamatory imputations. The Court found that ‘the ordinary, reasonable search engine user’ would not assume that Trkulja was a convicted criminal merely because his image was displayed in search results that also returned images of underworld figures, police officers, and crime reporters. Trkulja has appealed the decision to the High Court of...
Court Decision

Piscioneri v Brisciani [2015] ACTSC 106

Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
The proprietor of an online discussion forum was held liable in defamation for posts made by himself and third parties about the plaintiff. The self-represented defendant was found to be the ‘publisher’ of relevant posts on the basis that he had the ability to moderate and remove posts and actively participated in the discussion.
Court Decision

Bleyer v. Google Inc. [2014] NSWSC 897

Supreme Court of New South Wales
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).
Court Decision

Visscher v. Maritime Union of Australia (No 6) [2014] NSWSC 350

Supreme Court of New South Wales.
New South Wales Supreme Court found the Maritime Union was liable for publishing defamatory imputations when it hyperlinked to a third party webpage. The Court held that the words “Read Full Story” showed the Maritime Union ‘published’ and accepted responsibility for the content of the hyperlinked webpage. The words conveyed to the reader that the Maritime Union considered the defamatory imputations in the hyperlinked article to be part of a complete version of events. Accordingly, the hyperlink amounted to a ‘publication’ of the defamatory imputations in the hyperlinked webpage. The Court stressed that the question of publication is always one of fact, not law; it was therefore inappropriate to decide that hyperlinking could never amount to publication.