French insurance company Lyonnaise de Garantie didn’t take kindly to being associated with the French words for “crook” and “con man” in Google’s search results, so it sued the search giant and won: a French court has fined Google $65,000 and required it to remove the offending words from its autocomplete results. Google argued unsuccessfully that it was not liable, since the word association was the result of an automated algorithm.
Google fined, required to change unfavorable search results by French court
is executive editor who has obsessed over headlines and internet speeds since 2011. He previously worked as an advocate for the National Park System.
This isn’t the first time Google’s had legal woes in Europe, but this particular precedent could be troublesome for the company — if the rest of Europe emulates the French court, then Google could be faced with similar lawsuits from those with algorithmically bad reputations. Still, it’s not likely that a US court would make the same decision, so poor Rick Santorum — who’s caught in his own unfortunate Google search quagmire — probably won’t be able to change the will of the people with a lawsuit.
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