In a landmark decision in the Supreme Court of South Australia (Duffy v Google Inc [2015] SASC 170), search engine giant Google has been held responsible for linking through to defamatory material published and originating from a third party website and also for defamatory auto-complete suggestions.

In an ongoing battle spanning six years, self-represented Dr Janice Duffy has been victorious in having defamatory content removed from Google's search and auto-complete functions that was originally published about her on websites including US website, Ripoff Report (website).

Unable to have the material removed directly through the website, Dr Duffy approached Google requesting that the links to material appearing when users searched her name be removed from Google's search results and also from its auto-complete suggestions. Following Google's refusal to remove the defamatory material complained of, Dr Duffy filed legal proceedings against Google.

Google defended its position arguing that the search results were automated and therefore did not amount to publication. All Google's defences were rejected by Justice Blue in his decision.

The Court found that Dr Duffy was indeed defamed by Google as a result of its search results, hyperlinks and auto-complete suggestions, as Google ought to have censored its content once it was made aware of the defamatory material appearing.

The most interesting element of this decision was the finding that Dr Duffy was defamed as a result of Google's auto-complete functionality. This is the Google search function that predicts words when a user types search terms into the search field, and these appear in a drop down box below the search field. The auto-complete results in this case were found to carry imputations that were harmful to Dr Duffy's reputation.

Despite the fact that Google did eventually remove the defamatory links (notably, only after court proceedings had been filed), defamatory material continued to appear on Google as an auto-complete suggestion when users searched for Dr Duffy's name.

Google was liable as it had specific knowledge of the defamatory material contained in the search results and auto-complete suggestions and refused to remove it. The Court also found that Google was a re-publisher of the defamatory material on the website by virtue of its hyperlinking through to that material.

This decision has potentially far-reaching consequences for search engines, and has provided some hope for those whose reputations have been publicly tarnished online. The removal of defamatory content from Google, and potentially from other search engines as well, is now expected to occur more quickly following this decision, given that Google could be liable for a failure to remove material if it has been notified of defamatory material appearing and continues to publish it.

Nevertheless, potential complainants ought to bear in mind that this outcome took over six years to achieve, and Google may well consider treating other complaints of this nature on a case by case basis.

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