PARIS (AFP) – A Paris court has convicted US search engine giant Google and its chief executive Eric Schmidt of defamation over results from its “suggest” function, a French legal affairs website has revealed.
The new function, which suggests options as you type in a word, brought up the words “rapist” and “satanist” when the plaintiff’s name was typed into the search engine, legalis.net reported.
The court ordered Google to make a symbolic payment of one euro in damages and take measures to ensure they could be no repeat of the offence.
The ‘symbolic payment’ is one thing, the fact that there is a precedent of conviction is the most interesting thing for the future…
