The high court has ruled Google is not liable for defamatory comments found in its search results, saying the company facilitates access to the information but is not its publisher.
Mr Justice Eady made the ruling on Thursday in a case brought by Metropolitan International Schools, a distance learning company, against Google UK and its US parent. The school argued that a posting on the Digital Trends forums calling one class a "scam" was defamatory, and that Google should also be held liable for the libel since a snippet from the forum appeared in its search results.
However, the judge found that Google is merely a conduit to the information, not a publisher in its own right. In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady noted that the snippet shown by Google's search tool corresponds to the search terms the user has typed in, and that it points the user to another page somewhere on the web. It is up to the user to choose to access it or not, he added.
"It is fundamentally important to have in mind that the Third Defendant [Google] has no role to play in formulating the search terms... It has not authorised or caused the snippet to appear on the user's screen in any meaningful sense. It has merely, by the provision of its search service, played the role of a facilitator," Eady ruled.
The judge drew a physical-world analogy with somebody compiling a card catalogue. "If a scholar wishes to check for references to his research topic, he may well consult the library catalogue. On doing so, he may find that there are some potentially relevant books in one of the bays and make his way there to see whether he can make use of the content. It is hardly realistic to attribute responsibility for the content of those books to the compiler(s) of the catalogue."
Legal liability for search results is a complicated area. Search results can reveal unflattering or disputable descriptions of people, can make it difficult for companies to control use of their trademarks, and can otherwise reveal information that individuals or organisations would prefer not be discovered.
However, in cases where search results are modified, such as in China, search engines face accusations that they are screening out important information.
Google welcomed the ruling. "We are pleased with this result, which reinforces the principle that search engines aren't responsible for content that is published on third-party websites," the company said in a statement.
The search company said the high court had made it clear that those who feel they have been defamed by material on a website should address their complaint to the author and publisher of the material and not to a search engine.
