Google Faces Defamation Challenge

Update on the lawsuit

[engine]

A FEDERAL judge has questioned whether Google defamed a small company by cutting it from its web search ranking system.

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California heard arguments in a lawsuit by KinderStart.com LLC that seeks to challenge the fairness of how Google calculates the relative popularity of web sites.
Judge Fogel said in opening comments that he was concerned attorneys for plaintiff KinderStart had not met the legal standard for defamation at the core of its complaint.

"I guess I am still not convinced ... that a provably false statement has been alleged," Judge Fogel said during a court session on whether the suit should advance to the evidence discovery stage or be dismissed outright.

Google Faces Defamation Challenge [australianit.news.com.au]

[jimh009]

I still find it amazing that KinderStart.Com even had the nerve to sue Google - talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

And as for Google's ranking of this site, the worse they rank, the better. What a useless site.

[SEOPTI]

Just did site: for kinderstart, they show up with 109k results, but all supplemental!

[walkman]

>> Just did site: for kinderstart, they show up with 109k results, but all supplemental!

Damn! There goes my plan to sue Google as linkbait. Imagien all those links from all over ;)

[europeforvisitors]

It seems to me that KinderStart is the party that's being challenged.

[john28uk]

They still use adsense, maybe yahoo turned them down

[DeezIGNR]

They may not win the lawsuit, and may not deserve to. But had you heard about this company before this? I hadn't and I have at least heard of them now.

[Harry]

I had heard of them but in a related case, I believe.

[luckychucky]

Totally absurd...Jeez Louise.
How does neglecting to include a company in your free public directory equate to denigrating that company by publishing falsehoods? Huh?

[piconsulting]

They got hit by the superbowl update and were clueless on how to recover... not really cause to sue a free service.

[lexipixel]

...all done for the free PR value.

And, in this case PR stands for Public Relations not PageRank.

It sounds like G should sue "K" for defamation and for filing a frivolous law suit.

[luckychucky]

Well, I for one would never leave my kid with such a set of {oh, I have the perfect term, but if I write it in, the moderators will delete it. aargh}. What could they possibly teach a kid - how to be a sore loser? How to rat to the teacher in order to get someone else in trouble for one's own ineptitude?

[fischermx]

Sorry, but AGAIN?

This is not the first time Kinderstart sues Google.
I think the prior time was for another reason.

[BigDave]

It sounds like G should sue "K" for defamation and for filing a frivolous law suit.

Oh, there are counterclaims. The juiciest one is under California's Anit-SLAPP law.

The judge dismissed Kinderstart's first attempt in July without prejudice allowing them to amend the complaint. He also dropped the counter-claims if kinderstart was smart enough to let it be. Kinderstart did not let it be, so the judge is just about required to re-instate the Anti-SLAPP CC.

If Google wins the Anti-SLAPP, Guess who gets to pay all of google's expenses? Do you think Kinderstart has that sort of money?

What good is all that PR if your company goes BK?