Abusive and vicious material was being shown on Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) search pages about a former Morgan Stanley banker Daniel Hegglin, which lead Hegglin to file a case against Google. The material popping up on Google said that Hegglin was Nazi and part of the Ku Klux Klan. Hegglin is based in Hong Kong and his name was being abused on more than 4000 websites. According to search results he was a corrupt businessman. He was also accused of doing money laundering for an Italian Mafia.
Following the filing of the lawsuit Google was supposed to face High Court trial in the UK. The case was filed under UK’s law of data protection act.
Google’s lawyer Anthony White said that Google is sympathetic towards Hegglin and this is a rare case of internet trolling. He also said that Google is the main search engine for many people and companies and cannot be held responsible for monitoring internet content.
Hegglin demanded that Google provide him with an IP address so that he can find out the person who is responsible for posting such abusive information about him on the internet. According to Hegglin abusive material appeared on Google and continued to increase; he said that even though Google removed the URL the problem continued.
Hugh Tomlinson, Hegglin’s lawyer told the court that this case is not a right to be forgotten case; instead it is about circulation of abusive material. He also explained that searching the pages of Google is like playing a game of whack a mole where one mole pops out of a hole and when you hit it another one comes out of another hole.
However the two parties have settled the case now. The settlement followed Google Inc.’s immense efforts of getting the material permanently removed from its search pages. Tomlinson told the settlement court that Hegglin as of now will focus on the person who was responsible for the material and concentrate on bringing justice to him.
This is not the first time that Google had to face a case of this nature in the UK court. There had been prior claims from people who accused Google of defaming them.
Google faces similar lawsuit via European Union court in a Spanish case. Gideon Benaim, who is a lawyer at Michael Simkins LLP, represents people who want to get rid of material related to them on the web. Benaim said that Google controls the data that is available on its servers and therefore should abide by EU law.
Google has removed a quite a lot of content from the web following its various cases. According to recently updated data, after the EU court ruling in May, Google has gotten rid of 41.7% of search links, out of the total of 594,929 requests. In addition to personal requests, Google has also removed links to search results that are outdated or contains information about people that is trivial or unnecessary.
Google is probably the biggest search engine on the internet and it contains content and information about millions of people and companies. It is extremely hard for the company to keep an eye on every little detail and therefore these kinds of cases are bound to surface every now and then. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) tries its best to satisfy its rivals and does whatever is needed to solve the matter – its solutions may or may not please everyone.
