Search Marketing News

Responsible Search

Author :: Angela Hughes
Client Services at Mediarun
Date    :: 21st July 2009

Search engines not responsible for what people think of your business. In a landmark case, it has been ruled that Google is not responsible for search results showing defamatory comments. Metropolitan International Schools originally brought the case against the most dominant company in the search arena. Providing distance learning courses, the company received defamatory comments on a forum website, which Google then displayed as part of its search results.

Many companies have complained in the past about Google’s responsibilities to control what is shown on the search results, arguing that the search engine is playing the role of publisher. This court ruling has decided that far from publishing the comments, Google has no control over comments written on third party sites, and is merely the facilitator for users finding relevant information to a search term.

Google has always maintained that any defamatory or libellous content is the responsibility of the original author/publisher. And this appears to be a fairly logical argument – the person who has published and written the comment, is responsible for it. Trademark and intellectual property issues are also referred back to the offending website, or website owner and this has been the case across paid search campaigns for some time now. Google cannot control every website on the internet and police it on behalf of companies; however many companies argue that because of the reach and authority Google has, it should take more responsibility over the type of content and website it is recommending.

As user generated content becomes more of a powerful communication tool, in everything from helping to support purchasing decisions (from review sites such as Ciao to product reviews such as on Argos and Amazon) through to facilitating organisation change (Bring Whispa back campaign – generated from Facebook), search engine liability will continue to be analysed, testing and evaluated. This case, for now, settles some of the original questions brought about by the overwhelming shift towards search engines over the last decade.