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."

Re:And why should they?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I don't think Google is as hands off as you say. I just typed Mitt Romney in the search box and I got:

"Mitt Romney on issues"
"Mitt Romney vp"
"Mitt Romney tax returns"
"Mitt Romney wiki"

Judging by the commercials on television, I'd expect at Google to at least suggest some non-flattering search terms.

Re:And why should they?

[antifoidulus]

Yeah, but it's Germany, the masters on requiring certificates for everything.... A friend of mine was almost sued for reviewing a hotel in Germany. In his review he stated that there were bedbugs in the hotel he stayed at, and the hotel threatened to sue him. Not because they deny he saw bugs, but because they claimed he didn't have the proper qualifications to determine if the bugs in question were actually bedbugs or not..... They eneded up not going to court, but my friend had to hire a lawyer and they settled out of court, he was forced to remove his review. Only in Germany.....

Reverse Streisand effect

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

First time I heard about Bettina Wulff. So maybe her attempt to repair her bad reputation is going to damage it further instead?

On the other hand she could also benefit from a reverse Streisand effect. Surely a person everybody calls bad can't be that bad? There are a number of celebrities who actually benefited from getting "exposed" in public. Paris Hilton and Hugh Grant come to mind. They're much bigger stars now than they were before the scandal that outed them.

Google is already censoring the auto-complete

[tempmpi]

Google is already censoring the auto-complete, just for other reasons:

It will not suggest "adobe photoshop torrent" or "adobe photoshop crack", even though that these searches and similar searches are extremly popular. And it will not autocomplete "Rocco" to "Rocco Siffredi". So google is censoring auto-complete against piracy and against pornography, why exactly shouldn't it do the same thing to protect people against libel?

Re:Reverse Streisand effect

[aaaaaaargh!]

a reverse Streisand effect. Surely a person everybody calls bad can't be that bad?

What annoys me most about this debate is that there are so many people who apparently think that having worked as a prostitute/sex worker is so very bad and would somehow disqualify a woman from being the first lady. People and the boulevard press in Germany even went so far as to take the first lady's mature attitude towards better sexual education at schools as a clear sign of having been a prostitute, as if any of that constituted any real problem (rather than, say, hypocrisy or the moronic politics of her husband).

Re:European law takes these things seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

The former German president was married and divorced his first wife and then married Bettina.
The current German president is married but seperated, but not divorced, from his wife and living with his girlfriend.
The foreign affairs minister is openly gay.
The family affairs minister got her first child while in office.

I just tried to imagine this in the US, the heads of conservatives would explode.
BTW Germany currently has a conservative government.

Nothing but a marketing scheme for her new book

[demon driver]

And it couldn't be more evident. Just two things:

1. The event in discussion now dates back half a year. When it was news, Mr Wulff was still Federal President (an office which, in Germany, does not carry too much power; his main job is to represent the state) and struggling against the corruption allegations which finally made him resign. Back then, when it was urgent, Mrs Wulff did not deem it necessary to do or say anything at all.

2. This week there is a book by Mrs Wulff coming to the stores titled "Jenseits des Protokolls" ("Beyond Protocol"), which is expected to tell a few stories from the couple of months her husband was President, including, of course, the events she is now suing Google for.

Any questions?

All this is of course exactly in line with what those Wulff people have already shown to be their character.