Google, Eric Schmidt Convicted of Defamation Because of 'Suggestions' in Search
Google and company CEO Eric Schmidt have been convicted of defamation in France.
If you're a Google user, you are more than likely familiar with the company's Suggest feature, which shows you a list of possible searches related to the keywords you've entered into the search bar. Though it seems obvious that this feature is automated and operates by displaying the most common searches related to what you've searched for, a French court has convicted Google of defamation after a user complained that his name had been associated with the terms 'rapist' and 'Satanist'.
The Telegraph reports that the user, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of "corruption of a minor" and sentenced to three years in jail earlier this year. The man appealed the court's decision but discovered that Google Suggest had linked his name to undesirable terms, including 'rapist' and 'Satanist'. French law dictates that a person is innocent until all appeals have been exhausted.
As a result Google has been ordered to pay symbolic damages of one euro plus €5,000 in legal fees after the Superior Court of Paris found the search giant guilty of "public slandering of a private individual." Google has said it will appeal the court's decision, which also stated that the Mountain View company must take preventative measures to ensure the same thing does not happen again, and remove "harmful" suggestions.
A Google spokesperson clarified that these suggestions are not from Google but based on searches performed by other users.
"These searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors including (the) popularity of search terms," she told the Telegraph. "Google does not suggest these terms. All of the queries shown in Autocomplete have been typed previously by other Google users."
Source: The Telegraph

Least he only got 1 euro! HA.
Least he only got 1 euro! HA.
LOL it would suck to be on the receiving end of google suggest.
Seriously though I'm sure many people love the google suggest search suggestions appearing while they search for anything and everything they want on google or any other search site that uses a similar feature.
"[insert desired porn actress here] + [insert desired derogatory adjective here]"
Seriously I hope people don't go "let's sue" crazy after this article.
Better! a Symbolic 1 Euro!
Where do i sign up?
That was the first thing that came to my mind as well.
Sadly that may only be true for the US. Google censors plenty of their localised mirror domains.
The Streisand Effect strikes again!
Really though what is with some governments? They're just being Luddite jackasses. I do wonder though, there was talk that Microsoft was behind some of the DOJ action against Google, what is to stop them from spreading some little bits of trouble over the world? Its not like a lack of laws in a region has stopped a company before from acting immorally.
Being popular draws a lot of jealousy. A lot of companies would be glad to be rid of Google, so they could go back to business as usual.