Gizmos

Google Found Guilty of Defamation

After "suggest" feature links French man’s name to “rapist.”

This sounds as though it could have pretty huge consequences on the future of Internet privacy: A French court has found Google guilty of the “public slandering of a private individual” after it’s “suggest” feature linked a man’s name to words like “rapist,” “Satanist,” “rape,” and “prison.” The man, currently serving three years in prison for “corruption of a minor,” won because the court said he is considered innocent under French law until all of his appeals are exhausted. Google, meanwhile, is going to appeal the decision. "These searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors including [the] popularity of search terms,” a Google spokeswoman said. “Google does not suggest these terms. All of the queries shown in Autocomplete have been typed previously by other Google users.”