A UK judges has ruled that Google cannot be held responsible for defamatory words appearing in keyword based search results within the Google Search Engine.

Justice David Eaby explained that Google cannot be classified as a publisher as keyword searched are carried out by the end user and Google does not choose the terms to be searched.

The UK has extremely strict libel laws and as a result the case between Google and Metropolitan International Schools Limited (MIS) has been watched extremely closely from all over the world. MIS are a British company offering distance learning courses trading under the names SkillsTrain, Train2Game and Scheidegger MIS.

MIS attempted to Sue Google UK, Google Inc and a forum and bulletin board company called Designtechnica Corp. Incorporated which is based in Oregon. The company hosts a bulletin board service which has allegedly hosted defamatory comments and complaints about MIS.

“When a snippet is thrown up on the user’s screen in response to his search, it points him in the direction of an entry somewhere on the Web that corresponds, to a greater or lesser extent, to the search terms he has typed in,” Eady said. “It is for him to access or not, as he chooses.”

In a statement Google said that the verdict reinforces the principle that search engines are not responsible for third party published content.

The judge “made clear that if someone feels they have been defamed by material on a Web site then they should address their complaint to the person who actually wrote and published the material, and not a search engine, which simply provides a searchable index of content on the Internet,” it said.

A full copy of the judgement can be viewed here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/1765.html

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Optimisation