SYDNEY: The top court in Australia on Wednesday rejected a claim that Google had broken the law by linking to a contentious newspaper story, drawing further attention to the country’s procedures for addressing internet libel claims.
The High Court of Australia’s seven-judge panel voted 5-2 to overturn a previous decision that the website had an active involvement in disseminating the disputed piece by serving as a “library” for it, arguing that this was untrue.
According to the published judgement, the lawsuit was sparked by a 2004 article that claimed a criminal defence attorney had broken ethical boundaries and become a “confidant” of criminals.
The judge found that the lawyer, George Defteros, saw a reference to the item in a 2016 Google search of his name and asked Google to take it down after 150 people had seen it.
