French Court orders Google to remove "scam" from Suggestions

[tedster]

A Paris court of appeal has ruled against Google in a defamation case lodged by the Centre National Privé de Formation a Distance (CNFDI) in a suit which claimed the search engine's 'Suggest' feature linked the organisation to the word 'scam'.

The Mountain View giant has been ordered to take necessary measures to remove this suggestion from its search functions, according to French legal site Legalis.net...

The judges have concluded that the phrase "CNFDI arnaque" - translated as 'swindle' or 'scam' - falls under the umbrella of offensive, condemning the search giant.

BigMouth Media [bigmouthmedia.com]

[vincevincevince]

The search suggestions are really interesting - and are geolocated. It is fascinating to get an insight into what people in your area are asking Google!

In this present case, Google should have defended themselves on this very basis: the term appears because people have been searching for it. Therefore, the case should be brought against those persons for searching for CNFDI arnaque, not against Google who has had no editorial input.

[goodroi]

it does speak to a larger issue. this feature of google is open to abuse by smart webmasters.

if you know what you are doing you could manipulate google into showing positive or negative suggestions for when someone types in a brand name.

imagine searching for a restaurant's address and you get suggestions like "abc restuarant food poisoning" and "abc restaurant closed for health violations". you are probably gonna decide to search for another restaurant.

[vincevincevince]

goodroi... ssssh! ;-) Don't let the cat out of the bag...