Google has won a significant battle in Australian law with the High Court finding that the digital platform isn’t a publisher.
This is expected to stop claims that Google, in indexing and displaying links in search results, can't be liable for published defamatory articles.
The High Court found, in a majority ruling: “The provision of a hyperlink in the search result merely facilitated access to the underworld article and was not an act of participation in the bilateral process of communicating the contents of that article to a third party.”
The case turns on Melbourne lawyer George Defteros who sued Google in 2020 for $40,000 when it wouldn’t take down a hyperlink to an article in The Age.
The Victorian Supreme Court then found that the arfticle (about how Defteros was charged -- and these were later dropped -- with conspiracy and incitement to murder underworld figures) had defamed the lawyer.
Google appealed to the High Court, arguing: "Just as in the case of a modern-day telephone call where the caller communicates directly to the listener over the facilities of the telephone company, with no publication by the company itself, the provision of the search engine facility and the hyperlink does not involve direct participation by Google in the communication of defamatory 20 matter to which it affords a means of navigating.
"Google’s role is passive, in the sense that it has not manifested any objective intention to communicate the defamatory matter."
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