Google settles with ex-banker over online abuse

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

LONDON (AP) — Google has agreed to a settlement with a former Morgan Stanley banker who sued the search engine over defamatory Internet posts.

Daniel Hegglin, a Hong Kong-based investor, went to Britain's High Court to force Google to ensure posts falsely labeling him a murderer, pedophile and Nazi didn't appear in search results.

Hegglin's lawyer, Hugh Tomlinson, said Monday that the case had been settled. He didn't disclose details, but said the settlement "includes significant efforts on Google's part to remove the abusive material" from search results and Google-hosted websites.

Google lawyer Antony White said the company was sympathetic to Hegglin, who had received an "exceptional" amount of Internet abuse.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141124/eu-britain-google-lawsuit-8e85f3d5f0.html

[Demeter]

1. Who?

Hasn't this man ever heard "there's no such thing as bad publicity"?

Unless, of course, he was all those things, and trying to conceal it from the world....

[closeupready]

2. Google is getting a lot more authoritarian in the content

which they provide users, or which is uploaded to Youtube (a division of Google).

He may be a nobody, but if Google has been ordered to remove defamatory content or to restrict search results so that defamatory material is not provided, then they either have to comply or else pay up.