Germany: Google gates suggestions harmful - Computer Point

Into The Big G will have to remove the suggestions returned by the Autocomplete feature if deemed offensive or defamatory. The court in Karlsruhe ruled in favor of a contractor associated with Scientology

Rome – The Google officials are forced to remove all associations of queries considered offensive or defamatory, when suggested automatically by the Autocomplete feature in violation of the right to privacy of its users Germans . A judge of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has thus forced the giant California to clean up certain results of research to avoid a hefty fine.

It was therefore accepted the appeal filed by the mysterious German national RS , founder and CEO of an unspecified local company for the digital distribution of cosmetics and dietary supplements. In 2010, the function of auto suggestion on the site Google.de returned users with a specific association between the name of the entrepreneur and the two Scientology terms and fraud .

Into The same RS was immediately turned to a regional court in Cologne for the immediate removal of the results suggested by Bigg algorithms, not having had any connection with either the religious organization founded by Ron Hubbard or with fraudulent activities in the course of his business career. The local judge, however, had acquitted Google absence of empirical evidence on the actual invasion of privacy by Autocomplete .

Definitely different to the opinion of the federal court in Karlsruhe: queries suggested by the search engine U.S. would have ruined the reputation of the entrepreneur German. The heads of the Big G does not need to modify upstream algorithms for indexing results, limiting the removal of associations defamatory . The California-based company should act if a direct knowledge of the results in the violation of privacy.

Pending the epilogue of a very similar case – that of Bettina Wulff who had been associated with the words escort prostitute and red light from the same Autocomplete feature – Google said it was “surprised and saddened” the decision to Karlsruhe. The automatic suggestions Autocomplete you would base on the frequency of searches performed by users on the web . And the same Bigg could not be held responsible for these common practices of navigation through search.

Mauro Old