Germany's Former First Lady Sues Google

quax writes "Bettina Wulff faces an uphill battle for her reputation. Her husband had to resign as Germany's president due to corruption allegations and has many detractors. Apparently some of them started a character assassination campaign against his wife. At least that is, if you trust serious journalists who looked into the matter and stated that it is made up. Unfortunately though for Bettina Wulff, the rumors took off on the Internet. Now whenever you enter her name Google suggest the additional search terms 'prostitute' and 'escort.' Google refuses to alter its search index."

And why should they?

[Unknown1337]

Google suggest is an interpretive algorithm using common searches, and mass information to 'guess' what you or many other people might be wanting to search for. If the information is out there or people commonly search a topic it SHOULD appear as a possible option. The words probably should be censored for the vast audience possible, but it's the source information that is at fault, not Google for collecting it.

Re:And why should they?

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd be a fair and nice argument if they would apply these rules across the board. But there's quite a few cases where they've caved already, most notably to the lobbying from the entertainment industry. So they're at least making a statement that as an individual, you shouldn't expect them to alter their search index, but as a powerful corporate lobby, you can do what you please.

Google is Sometimes Hypocritical

[jellie]

I'm not so sure I would agree with Google's typical defense on this issue, which is that they have an algorithm that automatically ranks all the search results and they can't change that. Except they manually change the results. When companies break their rules, they can punish them. For example, when BMW's German website was found to influence results [bbc.co.uk], Google banned them from their index. An eyeglass company, DecorMyEyes, verbally abused its customers to generate bad reviews ... and more publicity [nytimes.com]. After being published in The Times, they dropped the company from the index. Even in the Santorum case, they eventually made some results less prominent. Google has also been accused of pushing up the rankings of its own products. So it's kinda hypocritical to say that Google doesn't adjust individual results.

Re:And why should they?

[moronoxyd]

Considdering that there are lots of websites where Germans rate hotels, restaurants and the like and tell their experience, and I don't hear a lot about all those people and websites getting sued, I guess that your friend was very unlucky. Or maybe the situation was a little mor complicated than what you told us.

Re:European law takes these things seriously

[gnasher719]

Hmmm, do I see a pattern, Germany not wanting to remember the holocaust,

Excuse me? Where do you get that shit from?

Re:European law takes these things seriously

[Tom]

*sigh*

It's getting old.

Any CEO who pulled such a stunt would be kicked out and sued into oblivion before the ink is dry. Europe is bigger than the US, you don't pull out of there unless you have a business suicide wish.