Comments on: Court Rules Website Liable for Google Snippet

By: Can you get your Google results changed quickly? (from Business Marketing Online)

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:15:10 +0000

[...] reports that a website in Holland has lost a lawsuit brought about by its Google results seeming to imply [...]

By: Aliester

Aliester — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:02:43 +0000

Is there any tool to see the website is liable or not.

By: Karl Foxley

Karl Foxley — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:29:36 +0000

This is an interesting post. I agree with Patrick when he says:

“How & why should they change it when the snippet is auto generated by Google?”

and James in regards to

“had the defendant been able to demonstrate that they had made efforts to change the snippet that would appear for this particular query â€“ even if those efforts had been unsuccessful â€“ they would not have lost the case.”

Thanks for sharing

Karl

By: TaT: Keyword-Tool auf Basis von Suchanfragen, PR-Sculpting, â€¦ | SEO MetaBlog

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:40:16 +0000

[...] Gericht: Website ist verantwortlich für Google Snippet. Was ein [...]

By: Harish

Harish — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:27:33 +0000

its just the Google algorithm to pick them up ,google generates it automatically as this been ,like how can one website can cause other website problems any how rule is rule ,but even the laws can be amended accordingly so that it does not effect in the near future .

By: TaT: Keyword-Tool auf Basis von Suchanfragen, PR-Sculpting, …

TaT: Keyword-Tool auf Basis von Suchanfragen, PR-Sculpting, … — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:05:53 +0000

[...] Gericht: Website ist verantwortlich fÃ¼r Google Snippet. Was ein [...]

By: Piet

Piet — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:38:34 +0000

In addition to what Marilynn already wrote: the defendant agreed that a “simple” change would do the trick. He only refused because complying with the request would in his opinion violate his freedom of speech. The judge did not hold him liable for what Google displayed, but for refusing to make the simple change.

Of course there is no general obligation to give a helping hand whenever you can, but in this case the defendant was in a more or less unique position to do something (together with Google itself, I guess), and helping would not have imposed any real burden on the defendant.

It is important not to interpret the verdict as implying that (Dutch) websites are liable for whatever Google does with their webpages. The judge took care to add a paragraph stressing this, but unsurprisingly most (Dutch) media reports chose to ignore that paragraph.

By: James Ward

James Ward — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:07:43 +0000

I believe that had the defendant been able to demonstrate that they had made efforts to change the snippet that would appear for this particular query â€“ even if those efforts had been unsuccessful â€“ they would not have lost the case.

The crucial point here seems to be that they ignored (reasonable) requests from the plaintiff, who was suffering damages as a result.

By: Patrick Altoft

Patrick Altoft — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:45:26 +0000

How & why should they change it when the snippet is auto generated by Google?

By: Marilynn

Marilynn — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:34:41 +0000

The plaintiff had requested that the site be changed multiple times, but the defendant refused. So I think the ruling is right. The refusal to make the “simple” change shows a willful desire to harm the other business, which is a far cry from having a suit come out of the blue for something they knew nothing about beforehand.