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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100925/tc_afp/franceinternetcourtgoogle

The ‘symbolic payment’ is one thing, the fact that there is a precedent of conviction is the most interesting thing for the future…

Adrian Farouk
Group Strategy Director