Google Is Libeling Banned Web Sites

[sirius77]

In Kinderstart v Google, Kinderstart claims it and other web site members of the class have been defamed (libeled) by Google. Kinderstart claims it has been arbitrarily assigned a PageRank of zero. The Court has tentatively dismissed Kinderstart’s case but suggests (“leave to amend”) that the complaint and especially the defamation claim could be modified to be valid. See Court’s order at http://law.marquette.edu/goldman/kin...mtdgranted.pdf

A report on the net “Google Defamation Case” (http://www.searchenginehonesty.com/s...ing#defamation) suggests that banned sites actually have a stronger case when it comes to libel and defamation. The idea is that banned sites are given a PR of zero in the Google clone of Open Directory and in the Google toolbar. Google’s description of this displayed PageRank says that it is an “honest”, and “objective” “indicator” of a site’s quality and the result of “an automatic calculation of factors such as the link structure of the web”. In fact, it appears that in the case of a banned site PR is the result of manual censoring by Google people following undisclosed subjective criteria. Google admits to the practice of banning. Therefore publicly stated PR of a banned site constitutes a knowingly false derogatory statement by Google regarding the nature and quality of a web site.

I think that eventually Google will have to change their public (search user) description of PageRank to admit that it is substantially arbitrary and editorial. They may even have to pay damages to libeled web sites.

[weslinda]

Is this a serious statement? People are going to actually sue Google for libel?

Let me get this straight. A poor site, using poor techniques, gets banned from Google, and doesn't have a PR will sue Google for Libel?

Google PR has been as fair as a system of this size can be across the board. Lets get realistic when we discuss how poor web sites, with no real information such as Kinderstart, can possibly go to the court systems and state that Google is defaming them by not giving them a good PR.

On the flip side, can a company sue Google because their new site doesn't have a PR? I have a site that has been up for 6 months and is just now starting to see some PR's for their pages. Can we sue for Google not moving fast enough to add this arbitrary "rank" to my site?

Perhaps I can sue Google for not sending me enough traffic, and I don't sell as many bikes as the bike store down the street that just happens to have a web site 10 times better than mine, and 100% better customer service.

We live in such a litigous society it's starting to sicken me. How come everyone else is to blame for our failures, instead of admitting we've actually screwed up?

Well, i'll shutup now. I hate hearing stuff like this, and it's unreal.

[sirius77]

weslinda: Yes they ARE suing Google.

The question as I understand it is not whether Google can take as long as they want giving a site any PR, or whether Google can arbitrarily assign any PR they want to a particular site. The question is whether Google can arbitrarily assign PR using undisclosed editorial criteria WHILE simultaneously telling search users that PR is the result of an "honest", "objective", "automatic" process involving matrix algebra and ratios of incoming links to outgoing links. Can Google lie about the nature of PR if it results in customers getting a false negative impression of web sites? Publishing knowingly false negative information about another company is illegal.

Sorry about the URL it is:
http://www.searchenginehonesty.com/s...tml#defamation

[weslinda]

I think the key you are discussing is that Google would openly say a site is "bad" using the terms "bad" and the site isn't.

However, Google is not a news agency. They are simply a directory / list of web sites, and they are "ranking" those sites based on a not so arbirtrary number.

I think those types of lawsuits would basically be worthless. As Google isn't "openly" saying anything "negative" about the site, they are simply not "ranking" the site. They can chose to do this.

I love how many companies, like Kinderstart, who lost by the way, are trying these types of BS lawsuits just to get some extra dough to keep the doors open of a poor business model.

[sirius77]

Kinderstart has apparently not lost yet.

The Google toolbar does indeed have a "not ranked by Google" option. Google could chose to not rank a site. However, banned and manually downranked sites have a PR of "zero" not "not ranked by Google". The "zero" appears to be a knowingly false derogatory statement based on Google's description of PageRank.

[scanmonkey]

sirius77,

I think you are barking up the wrong tree on this one. PR0 is kosher and is not derogatory. In fact, there are plenty of PR0 sites that are getting google traffic.

The only issue I would have is a grayed out toolbar when the website has no problems. That would not be kosher.

However, I still don't believe that there is a case for libel. But in America you can sue for anything and a jury can go either way. Mcdonalds got sued by a women that complained she got burnt by their hot coffee. Mcdonalds lost millions and had to place a warning on their cups that the product is hot.

[sirius77]

Yes, There are sites that have PR=zero that are not banned by Google. But sites that are banned by Google go from whatever PR they had to zero. So manual banning for undisclosed reasons clearly negatively affects PR. Google's description of PR to their users ("honest", "objective", "automatic calculation", etc. etc.) certainly does not include manual, arbitrary, site-by-site adjustment of PR. So it appears there is a case for libel.

In my opinion Google could well win the case but lose in the end if forced to publicly admit in court to various sleazy practices that grossly violate their "do no evil" image.

[weslinda]

Google has every right to manually, site by site adjust PR dependant upon issues that may get brought to their attention.

Many of the negative things that Google will reduce PR for are shared by Google and have been quite consistent with their site standards. As their systems get more and more complex, I'm sure you'll find more and more sites that were skirting banning, or reduced PR get caught.

Google has every right to manually edit PR for sites that do not conform to the qualities that they require of sites to be listed in their directories.

I'm not sure how you can even think there is a solid case for "libel" as Google is not going out and stating something about your site. They are not saying anything negative, there are no statements of any sort like that from them. The only way an invidual might find out a site is "banned" is for them to visit the site, thus Libel isn't even close to applicable here.

Google won't lose the lawsuit, and you're waisting quite a bit of your time here worrying about it.

[sirius77]

Originally Posted by weslinda

Google has every right to manually, site by site adjust PR dependant upon issues that may get brought to their attention.

Google has every right to manually edit PR for sites that do not conform to the qualities that they require of sites to be listed in their directories.

I agree. Google has every right to manually adjust PR and censor sites for any arbitrary and undisclosed reason including anti-competitive reasons. The problem is that they do not tell their search users they are doing this. A reasonable search user, having read Google's description of PR, is led to believe that a site with a PR of zero has zero or minimal "importance" as measured by incoming links to the site. In the case of a banned site or other site subject to manual adjustment of PR, this is a lie. The site's PR=0 is actually the result of an arbitrary decision made by a Google censor that could be because of a Google decision that the site represented competition with Google, competed with a Google partner, contained content that the censor did not like for personal reasons, or any other reason. The PR=0 does not reflect incoming links or any other "automatic calculation" and "objective" indication of site "importance. If search users knew that PR was being arbitrarily adjusted for undisclosed reasons, they would be likely to have a better opinion of PR=0 sites. Therefore, QED, Google's lie is injurious to the banned, PR=0 web sites. Google is in fact stating something negative about web sites that is not true and that they know is not true. That's my understanding of "libel". You can read the Court's thinking on this issue at the link given in the first post.

[mike]

I'm only surprised that nobody's done this before now.

It's certainly subject to some degree of interpretation, but yeah, the logical leap isn't a huge one.

[scanmonkey]

"The judge in the KinderStart case granted Google’s motion to dismiss without leave to amend:" http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/quick-legal-update/

[incrediblehelp]

Isnt this old news?

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Isnt this old news?

The KinderStart Legal Update was Posted on the Matt Cutts blog on March 20, 2007

There is also a thread at WPW

It looks like KinderStart will have to pay Googles legal fees as well. Ouuch!

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

It looks like KinderStart will have to pay Googles legal fees as well. Ouuch!

Good people should pay for being a moron.

[sirius77]

As I understand it (I am not a lawyer) the court reaffirmed that Google is a publisher and can therefore manipulate search results in any way it chooses. Search results are editorial content. However, publishers are bound by rules regarding defamation and libel.

The Court's order is at: http://claranet.scu.edu/tempfiles/tm...tdismissal.pdf

Kinderstart was making many claims against Google. The specific claim addressed in my original post was that Google's PageRank as published in the Google ODP directory clone was a knowingly false derogatory statement about Kinderstart and other sites that were manually editorially selected for banning or suppression via site-unique bias. Such editorial selection reduced the PageRank that would have been displayed had the site not been selected for banning or suppression. The Court seems to be saying that this particular claim was denied because of technical defects in the pleading that were not corrected even given a second opportunity. Subsequent valid claims could apparently be made by someone else.

Google seems to be gradually discontinuing their ODP directory clone, which has apparently not been updated since 2005 and is therefore very stale. The toolbar, used by a small number of users, is the only remaining place where PageRank is displayed to search users. Google could easily fix this problem by putting a note in the toolbar documentation that says that PageRank is a partly editorial value judgement. Virtually nobody would read the note and everybody would be legally happy.